Despite Destiny 2's climactic The Final Shape expansion going down a storm with fans, Bungie is making another sizable round of layoffs to its workforce, the studio has announced. 220 roles will be eliminated in order for Bungie to solely focus on ing Destiny 2 and developing its extraction shooter Marathon.
While the Destiny 2 at its shining best, the positive sentiment and player count spike that was created by The Final Shape just a couple of months back suggested that things might be getting back on track for Bungie. However, studio head Pete Parsons says in an announcement post that "due to rising costs of development and industry shifts, as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon."
It's not just coalface devs that are affected, either. "These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles," Parsons says. This news comes after an initial round of layoffs were made in October 2023, where it's estimated around 100 developers were let go. Parsons confirms that Bungie's head count is now at around 850 people.
The number of layoffs doesn't totally paint the entire picture of just how much change is needed at Bungie. On top of the roles being eliminated, parent company Sony (which bought Bungie in 2022 for $3.7 billion) is going to be absorbing some of Bungie's talent. "We are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters," the announcement post reads.
Moreover, one of Bungie's major incubation projects – "an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe" – is being handed over to Sony. An all-new studio under the PlayStation Studios banner is being spun up to develop this unannounced game.
There's been no mention today of the layoffs impacting the development timeline for future Destiny 2 content or delaying the Marathon release date.
While it seems that Destiny 2 and Marathon are leaving this round of cuts fairly unscathed, this is of course still extremely disheartening to hear. Bungie grew aggressively to try and fulfil its ambitions of having "three enduring, global franchises", but Parsons its it has made several key errors along the way that have only been exacerbated by the current economic climate. These include spreading the time too thin among multiple incubation projects and missing the mark with its woeful Lightfall expansion.
While Destiny 2 is experiencing a lull post-The Final Shape, here are some other great PC games that you can look forward to alongside Marathon.
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