Earlier today, Bungie and Activision announced that the two companies have decided to split after a tumultuous eight year partnership. Announced via a post on Bungie.net, the two companies have decided to part ways so Bungie may focus on self publishing their games and Activision will focus on “owned IP projects.”  With this, Activision is also transferring the publishing rights of the massive Destiny franchise to Bungie itself.

“With Activision, we created something special. To date, Destiny has delivered a combination of over 50 million games and expansions to players all around the world,” the post reads.  With the transition of the franchise’s rights in the early stages, Bungie will now be able to develop and publish Destiny without any outside influence. Most notably, this follows the sales of Destiny 2 not living up to Activision’s expectations. It also follows Bungie receiving a substantial investment from Chinese company NetEase last year.

The partnership between Bungie and Activision was originally suppose to last ten years. Even though the partnership is ending early, both companies are trying to make the transition as seamless as possible. This seamless transition also sees Destiny 2 not losing all support from Activision Blizzard either as Blizzard Customer Service tweeted out that the game will continue to receive full support on BattleNet. Activision also took to Twitter to release a joint statement from the two companies.

Thank you Guardians. It’s been an honor and a privilege to help bring the world of Destiny to life for you. pic.twitter.com/EB1y19OTD8

— Activision (@Activision) January 10, 2019

In the post, Bungie stated that the company learned what players want from Destiny thanks to Destiny 2‘s latest expansion Forsaken. Bungie plans to continue to follow the current Destiny roadmap. The company also teased new, surprising announcements are coming for “what lies beyond” the current Destiny content schedule. Now, with having full independence since prior to working with Microsoft on the Halo franchise, it will be interesting to see where Bungie goes next.