Destiny 2's Google Stadia developers worked at Bungie for six months

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Bungie and Google devs worked side-by-side for half a year

(Image credit: Google/Bungie)

Google Stadia wants to make sure Destiny 2 looks, feels, and plays well when it launches on the groundbreaking game streaming service. The best way to do that? Send Google devs to work at Bungie for six months, of course.

According to IGN, Google devs worked in the Destiny team's offices for six months, with Google employees even attending Bungie's stand-up meetings. Google Stadia's technical account manager Oliver Teckert (one of the few Google employees to work at Bungie throughout the entire process) expanded upon the idea behind the collaboration, telling IGN, "We knew the best results would be produced by one team with one culture working towards a unified goal." That unified goal, according to Teckert, is “to play Destiny anytime, anywhere through Stadia.”

Considering Destiny 2 is the only game included for free in the Founder's or Premiere Edition bundles, it makes sense that Google would want to focus on its performance. After all, the first people to play Google Stadia will be the ones who purchased the Founder's Editions, and with Destiny 2 (and all of the sequel's content, up through Destiny 2: Shadowkeep) immediately available to them at no added cost, it'll likely be getting some heavy rotation from day one. And since Google Stadia is entirely cloud-based, latency always looms on the horizon, so ironing out any issues with such an important IP is crucial before launch.

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According to Teckert, Google "wanted to take the time to deeply understand aspects of [Bungie's] game and technology to ensure we really understood how best to work with them, and most importantly, why those decisions were made.” Google noticed Bungie's "distinct focus on the player and the player experience," a heartening quote for Destiny players hoping it'll hold up on the Google Stadia. 

Google Stadia Founder's Editions are shipping out in the order in which the pre-orders were received, starting November 19. Let's see how well Destiny 2 fares. 

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Alyssa Mercante
Alyssa Mercante
Former Features Writer

Alyssa Mercante used to be a features writer at GamesRadar+ and is now a freelance writer and editor. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.