Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy no longer work at Bungie
Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy have decided to resign and leave Bungie after one important project was canceled.
The past week has been incredibly difficult for Bungie and Destiny 2 fans. The developers and studio staff have faced significant layoffs and restructuring, with little understanding of what will happen to Bungie’s games, and the bad news just keeps coming. For instance, it was revealed today that two veteran studio members, Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, are departing.
Various sources have reported this, but Jason Schreier, a reporter at Bloomberg, and Jeff Grubb, a reporter at GameBomb, have provided the most details. According to their information, they left the studio after project Payback, a Destiny spin-off that is not Destiny 3, was canceled. It is reported that Payback was canceled in mid-June, and the game’s development lasted a little over a year.
However, Jeff clarified that both veterans were not fired but left on their own terms:
“They left as part of the restructuring. The difference there being, they understood what was happening and left of their own accord, or made their own separate deal.”
— Jeff Grubb
In turn, Jason wrote his point of view on the situation, saying that they were fired this week:
“It is accurate that Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy were laid off this week. It is not accurate to suggest Payback was canceled this week. I’ll have more in a story tomorrow!”
— Jason Schreier
Luke Smith has been working at Bungie since 2007, having worked on Halo 3: ODST (community manager), Halo Reach (player investment), Destiny 1 (design lead), and Destiny 2 (game director). In recent years, he was the executive creative director for the Destiny universe.
Mark Noseworthy joined the studio around 2009-2010, contributing to Halo Reach (engineering producer), Destiny 1 (one of his most notable roles was as executive producer for The Taken King expansion), and Destiny 2 (project lead). At the time of his departure, he was the vice president of Destiny.
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