Bungie’s decision to sunset the whole of Destiny 2 has not gone over well with fans. Gamers have been flooding livestreams and showcases with chants of “We Want Destiny 3!” hoping to convince the studio and Sony to keep the franchise alive. It’s not just empty noise either; the game’s enjoying its biggest resurgence since 2024’s Into the Light. Unfortunately, if recent reports are accurate, none of that momentum is enough to change Bungie’s plans for Destiny 2, Destiny 3, or even the studio itself.
In a recent video, Forbes’ Paul Tassi, a well-known avid follower and journalist, revealed he asked his sources whether Destiny 2‘s renewed success had changed anything behind the scenes at Bungie. After all, the game has remained among Steam’s top revenue earners for much of the past week. “Destiny has maintained over 125,000 concurrent players every night for the past week since the update dropped,” he said. “Let’s say, double that at minimum on console.”
According to our own cross-checking, Destiny 2 currently sits among Steam’s Top 15 most-played games and ranks 16 on the best-selling chart. However, the answer he got from his sources was brutally simple: “No.” Destiny 2‘s strong performance since the Moment of Triumph update has literally not changed the direction Bungie is heading.
You can grind out a million cosmetics from Engrams if you want, but in terms of Bungie support, there will be zero. And it’s just, it sucks because I know people see these numbers and they’re like, “Well, surely this must be changing hearts and minds over there at Bungie leadership and at Sony.” And, like, it just, it hasn’t. I maintain that I think this is stupid.
He also reiterated previous reporting from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that ‘significant numbers of layoffs‘ are expected at the studio. But neither provided estimates regarding how many employees could be affected. On the other hand, however, journalist Sylvain Trinel of France’s BFM TV recently claimed that it could impact ‘at least’ 400 people of Bungie’s workforce.
“I’m hearing talk of at least 50% of the workforce affected (permanent or contract staff) following the end of Destiny 2 and the situation with Marathon,” wrote Trinel on X through the site’s translation. Bungie’s last publicly known headcount was around 800 employees.
Tassi then argued that big layoffs in July or August seem inevitable given Bungie’s current situation. After all, Bungie is finally ending Destiny 2‘s updates and confirming there’ll be no Destiny 3. With no other ongoing project, there’s no way the studio will move ‘300, 400’ staff over to Marathon.
“What do you do with them, in their view, other than lay them off?” Tassi said. “The whole point of this Bungie stuff is that they are burning cash and they are unprofitable.” While he admitted he doesn’t know the exact timeline for the layoffs, Tassi said that sometime ‘in the next month or two’ is most likely. He also predicted that in July, we could see additional leadership figures and longtime OG Bungie veterans leaving.
Tassi also noted that Destiny 2‘s upcoming ‘final hotfix’ is being prepared only to address bugs and issues introduced by its last update. After that, Bungie is expected to scale back support for the game dramatically. Future patches are reportedly reserved only for the most severe crashes and other game-breaking issues. He regretted this decision, comparing it to The Division 2, which just announced another massive update, and Warframe, which has been running strong for 13 years now.
For longtime Guardians, that could be the strangest part of the entire situation. Destiny 2 is enjoying some of its strongest player numbers in years, yet Bungie appears determined to burn things down regardless.
