The development studio Bungie is known from earlier days for Halo, but now almost exclusively for the live service franchise Destiny. For future developments, prominent reinforcements have now been brought on board from a competing studio.
Riot Games no longer only has the long-running League of Legends at the start, but also, for example, the online shooter Valorant, which has proven to be just as popular and, as a live service game, also competes somewhat with Destiny 2 from Bungie. It is therefore all the more remarkable that Bungie Riot Games has now been able to poach an important developer head.
As has now been confirmed, former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler is now working for Bungie; he has now made this public himself via his Twitter account. Riot Games will have to look elsewhere in this regard in the future, while Bungie has a new chief developer. Because Ziegler will also take on the position of game director there in the future.
However, Ziegler will by no means work on Destiny 2 in this capacity at Bungie. Rather, he works as game director on a previously unannounced competitive shooter that Bungie is currently busy with.
In his farewell statement, Ziegler expressed his gratitude for his time at Riot Games, but at the same time emphasized that he is looking forward to his new role at Bungie. Unfortunately, he did not initially release any further details about the unannounced project. In the past, the new IP appeared on the internet as a third-person action game under the “Matter” trademark, but nothing more is known.
Ziegler has been with Riot Games since 2010 and two years after his appointment he was promoted to lead designer. He served as Valorant’s game director between 2019 and 2021; he is considered one of the most important developers in the creation of the now successful online shooter.
With the Halo series, Bungie achieved the mega hit. We illuminate the whole story of the developer in our Bungie History.
