Today, Bungie announced that Joe Staten, the cinematic director for the first three Halo games and lead writer for Destiny, has left the company. According to him, this was to pursue “new creative challenges.” Staten had been with the company for more than 15 years and was the one of the four people whose focus was on the stories of Halo and Destiny. Apart from writing the first three Halo games and Destiny, Staten as wrote what I felt was one of the best of the Halo novels, Contact Harvest, as well as helping shape the focus of the story in Halo Wars and Halo 3: ODST. As part of the announcement, State had this to say:
“After fifteen great years at Bungie, from the battlefields of Myth to the mysteries of Halo and beyond, I’m leaving to tackle new creative challenges. While this may come as a surprise, fear not. It’s been my pleasure building Destiny these past four years, and after the big reveal this Summer, our hugely talented team is on track for greatness. I’ll be cheering all of them, with all of you, when the game launches next year. Thank you for your support of me, and your continued support of Bungie. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
As a personal fan of his work, I am actually pretty sad to see him leave the company. However, I am extremely excited to see what he does next in the coming future.
Source: Bungie (via Game Informer)