Bungie, this is Activision. Activision, Bungie.

Well, this is interesting. The insanely successful developers behind the Halo franchise (among others), Bungie, is gearing up to make their next big action game…but not for Microsoft.

In a 10 year exclusive deal, Bungie jumps out of bed with the Seattle giant and under the sheets of Santa Monica’s 700-pound gorilla that is Activision. Bungie still retains its independence in the deal, but Activision get the exclusive rights to publish all future Bungie games based on this unknown IP on multiple platforms for the next decade.

To be fair, Bungie hasn’t been with Microsoft since 2007, but they’ve become pretty synonymous with the Xbox 360 because of Halo’s success.

These multi-million dollar deals don’t happen overnight, so anyone thinking this is a reaction to the Infinity Ward snafu in recent weeks should consider that planning for this partnership has been going likely for months. That said, losing IW and gaining Bungie might as well be a 1 for 1 trade.

A bit of advice to Bungie President Harold Ryan: you might want to quadruple check how bonuses work over at Activision. I hear they can be… questionable.