Valorant game director leaves Riot to join Bungie

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After eight years of working as a Valorant game director, Joe Ziegler has taken on a new role at Destiny developer Bungie. Ziegler says he’s now a game director at Bungie, “working on new stuff that hopefully will one day get to be played by you all.” Whether that’s related to Bungie’s currently popular FPS game Destiny or a new IP remains to be seen.

Ziegler has helped lead Riot’s Valorant team for more than eight years. He first joined Riot as a game designer in 2010, following stints at Pandemic Studios and Killspace Entertainment, where he’d worked in both design and director roles.

While Bungie’s premiere product right now is of course Destiny, the studio has been quietly hiring up for an unannounced project for some time: last summer, Bungie posted a job advertisement for a marketing manager for a new IP, and some of the desired skills the company was looking for in potential candidates included familiarity with MMOs, free-to-play business models, and mobile games.

That may or may not be the same game that Bungie has explored with Chinese publisher NetEase, thus far known only by its trademark, ‘Matter.’

Ziegler hasn’t yet specified what game or games he’ll be working on for Bungie, but he seems pleased with the move. However, he did have some touching words of farewell for his colleagues at Riot when he announced his departure December 7.

“Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know that after 12 great years at Riot, this week will be my last week,” he wrote in a tweet. “I am departing with a heart full of gratitude for Riot Games and all of you for the amazing memories we’ve shared together. Will update very soon with my next home.”

We’ll be keen to see what he gets up to next. In the meantime, we’ve got some tips for getting started with Valorant if you’ve been nervous about jumping into Riot’s F2P shooter.