Composer Marty O'Donnell, Bungie's former audio director, was scathing in a recent interview with Halo YouTuber HiddenXperia, saying that the studio's deal with Activision "sucked, just like I thought."

O'Donnell was fired from Bungie in 2014 and blames Activision for meddling. He had been with the developer since 1999, and before that had been contracted to produce music for Myth 2 and other projects.

As a member of the board of directors, O'Donnell was one of seven Bungie executives who went to Activision with the contract." If anyone can be accused of going to Activision, I am one of them."

The main reason they went to Activision, he claims, was because the other publishers did not agree to Bungie's terms. The developer had sold "Halo" to Microsoft and did not want to give up another title, so Bungie made it a condition that they keep the IP. None of the other publishers, including Microsoft, were interested.

The deal meant that Bungie would take "Destiny 2" with them when they eventually separated from Activision, but it did not seem to stop publishers from interfering with the series.

"The only way they would have stopped me from interfering with the IP is if all of Bungie's leadership said, 'You can't interfere with the IP,' but that didn't happen," O'Donnell said. That's why [Bungie] fired me," O'Donnell says.

When Bungie and Activision parted company a few years after O'Donnell was fired, it was publicly an amicable goodbye. We have enjoyed eight successful years and want to thank them for their partnership on Destiny," the developer said in a statement. [But that is not O'Donnell's recollection. It wasn't a marriage made in heaven," he said. In the interview, he positions himself as if he is an outsider willing to tell the truth because he is no longer at Bungie, portraying the comments of Bungie employees who disagree with him as "scripted" and "political." He believes that anyone who is no longer at Bungie would admit that "it was bad all along."

Nor were Bungie and O'Donnell close. After he was fired for no reason, he sued Bungie. He won a court battle in 2015 and retained his shares.