Destiny 2 almost got a Dream Daddy-style dating sim, but leadership killed it

Destiny 2 could have had an official dating sim — and it actually got built, at least in prototype form. Ex-community manager Liana Ruppert confirmed on social media that a team at Bungie made one, describing it as "very Dream Daddy-inspired," only for leadership to shut it down with a hard no on the grounds that "nobody wanted romance or silliness."

Former senior narrative designer Robert Brookes filled in the details: the dating sim was built during Bungie's internal "Carnival" game jam, a week-long event where developers had free rein to pitch and prototype whatever they wanted. It was never a full production project, but Brookes says the narrative team — which included two developers who came directly from romance game design — pitched it as a full-fledged game every single year, complete with a cost breakdown and "real hard metrics on returns." The roster of potential romance options was never officially named, but given the Dream Daddy comparison, it's not hard to picture Crow, Caiatl, or Xur as candidates. Former Bungie director Christopher Barrett also revealed the game jams produced a fighting game, a Destiny-inspired heavy metal concert, and a dialogue conversation system, among other experiments.

The news lands during a particularly raw moment for the Destiny community — Bungie just shipped the game's final update, Monument of Triumph, ending nine years of active development with no Destiny 3 announced. Hearing about creative projects that never made it out of internal pitches adds another layer to the post-mortem. Bungie's history of tension between developers and leadership, compounded by years of financial pressure, makes the repeated rejection of a clearly passionate pitch sting a little more.

Reaction online has been a mix of genuine disappointment and dark humor — the kind of "of course they said no" energy that's become familiar territory for longtime Destiny players. A fan concept video from YouTuber A Wild Deathstroke, made back in 2022, shows the idea had community traction long before this week's confirmation. Whether any of the game jam experiments ever influenced something that did ship — the way Sparrow Racing League may have grown from similar prototypes — remains unconfirmed.