Kotaku.AU are carrying a news story today that, according to them, is from an anonymous contractor who worked on the next Bungie title. The anonymous source, who claims to have recently been let go by Bungie, was working on their new game, and if the details are true – has just lifted the lid on something major. The codename “Tiger” was the project name for Bungie’s super-secret game, “Destiny” title. The source also claims the game is a mix of an FPS, MMO and more but all mixed into a sci-fi setting. Published by Activision Blizzard, it would indeed all fall into line as there are growing rumours that they are becoming increasingly frustrated with “free” online play, and seem desperate to ring you dry of this freedom with pay-per-play charges.

Kotaku.AU is also claiming that the source dished out some details about redundancies within Bungie. The claims seem to indicate a ferocious approach to removing people from the scene as quickly as possible:

“I and about 30 other people were let go for no reason recently after Bungie decided to let go every employee who wasn’t full-time employed, this included producers, artists, programmers, most of the IT staff, and security. We were given no warning and were actually told there was a “full-time employee only meeting” and that we had to leave the building early, only to find out once we left that our email accounts were killed.”

The source go on to say the following:

“Bungie told our agencies that it was “performance related” – but one of our fellow fired-employees was an IT contractor, and showed us an email he received before his account was killed, citing “project sensitivity” and “budgetary concerns from our publisher” budgetary concerns is laughable considering the scraps we were paid.”

Bungie have since released the following statement:

“This evening, Kotaku Australia published a blog entry to their website claiming that Bungie recently terminated as many as thirty contract employees without notice or justification, effectively eliminating all non full time staff at the request of our publisher, Activision-Blizzard.

The claim is false.

Bungie has never been asked to lay off any employees or contract employees by our publisher, Activision-Blizzard, for any reason. The talented professionals who grace our offices day in and day out are the lifeblood of Bungie – our most cherished commodity – and the unsubstantiated rumors posted today are in direct opposition to the culture and values that we believe make Bungie an exceptional place to work, and to call home.

(Oh, and since we’re on the subject, we’re hiring.)”