Sony announced today that in its efforts to restructure Bungie, it would lay off several of its employees working on both Destiny 2 and Marathon. While many already saw this coming, we were not prepared for the magnitude of the news. According to several sources, over 50% of Bungie’s staff have been laid off, including developers, testers, artists, and programmers. Besides that, the current lead at Bungie has stepped down, less than a year after taking over.
Bungie Layoffs Target Destiny 2 and Even Marathon Teams
Earlier today, Bungie announced that it would be “reducing its force” in an effort to reorganize the studio. While there aren’t specific numbers yet, some speculate that the layoffs have hit around 50% of the studio.
While many thought this would only affect those working at Destiny 2, especially now that the final update is out, it turns out this also hit those working on Marathon and even some Sony members.
In another post, Hermen Hulst mentioned that all teams working under Bungie would be affected, with some to a greater or lesser extent.
We have made the decision to reduce Bungie’s workforce, affecting a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members. There are also reductions across SIE teams that support Bungie’s operations. Those impacted at Bungie and within SIE are being informed today.
Hermen Hulst
After learning of this, several former Destiny 2 developers started posting about their job losses, with several key developers being laid off from the company. Some worked in the sandbox part of the game, some in the community department, and so on.
Yet, what makes the whole situation even more worrying is that Sony and Bungie are already cutting ties with some Marathon developers, just weeks after the launch of Season 2. While Hulst mentions that Marathon is still part of the portfolio, he only talks about the foundations of Season 1 and 2, making many believe that Season 3 may not happen, and if it does, it could be smaller in scope than first anticipated.
Besides the layoffs at Bungie, there was also news about Justin Truman, Bungie’s lead, who took the reins after Pete Parsons had also stepped down.
This has already been confirmed by several sources, who mention that Truman was the head of the studio for less than a year. While many think he was part of the final update for Destiny 2 and the reason why it was successful to an extent, many still blame him and Peter for the state of the shooter and its eventual closure.
