As part of the ongoing litigation between ex-Infinity Ward members Vince West & Frank Zampella and Activision a whole slew of information has begun to make its way into the public, most of which doesn’t directly involve the Call of Duty franchise. While we've already brought gamers details regarding Electronic Arts' deal with West and Zampella's new studio Respawn Entertainment that would see the development of a "Halo-killer," another juicy piece of information has made its way onto the net that involves, ironically, former Halo developer Bungie.

According to a deal between Activision and Bungie — a deal that only came to light as result of this Call of Duty case — the publisher tasked Bungie with the development of four sci-fi shooter projects all with the code name Destiny. The first project in the 'Destiny' deal would be an Xbox 360 (or Xbox 720/Durango) exclusive, while the next three would launch on all three platforms.

Along with the development of these four games, Bungie would also be responsible for four DLC expansions to be released in the interim years between the main game launches.

The deal also limited Bungie's involvement with Halo: Reach DLC and on Bungie.net, keeping them from becoming to attached to their former franchise. That forced detachment was also mitigated by an agreement that Bungie could work on a side project code-named Marathon. At first the developer could only place a limited number of staff to work on the project, but as certain economic milestones were hit that number could increase.

Obviously the release of these details throws a huge wrench into Bungie's plans for developmental secrecy, but we already knew they were working on something called Destiny based off a trademark filing earlier this year. These additional tidbits do put to rest rumors that Destiny will be an MMO, but that doesn't mean Marathon couldn't be that rumored title. It might be bad for the developer but at least now gamers know that Bungie is working on a sci-fi shooter for Activision, and more importantly it should be hitting store shelves in the Fall of 2013.

Are you disappointed to learn that Bungie's first project outside of Microsoft will be an Xbox-exclusive? What do you hope to see from the developer in terms of this new franchise?

Source: LA Times