My best guess, is that Bungie was running out of time, and finishing Destiny the way they intended, was probably going to take more time/money and they would lose profit for missing another release date. High level/Bungie made a deal with High level/Activision. To gut everything in Destiny except the gameplay, including story content to achieve these 3 likely scenarios, all revolving around being a money driver, rather than delivering the original artistic vision: [spoiler]1) Keep parity to legacy hardware, so last gen owners don't feel left out and buy the game. This drives sales. 2) Aggressively pursue a "Teen" rating. Db everything down to a "10 year old level." Level the playing field, keep loot random and remove trading/gambling. This drives sales as kids will be more likely to play. 3) Chop the game's story into dreaded DLC model. The entire story of Destiny is probably spread over 4 games by now.[/spoiler] What kind of writer would stay with Bungie after being told their masterpiece was being gutted into shit, to conform to the above likely scenarios? Nobody. That's why he left.