The mass layoffs at Bungie, the studio behind Destiny and Halo, are currently affecting the gaming industry. In a major report, well-known journalist Jason Schreier shows that Bungie had taken on too much.
What kind of report is this? On the evening of August 2nd our time, the well-known gaming journalist Jason Schreier published an insider report on Bloomberg about the current mass layoffs at Bungie. For this, he spoke to 10 current and former employees of the Destiny developer.
Schreier paints a picture of a studio that grew too quickly, stretched itself too far, and talks about the Destiny 3 that never existed.
Bungie probably thought they could do anything
What was that about “Bungie magic”? The “Bungie Magic” is said to have been a mantra of CEO Pete Parsons, whom many employees now accuse of not taking enough responsibility for his bad decisions. In general, he was “overly optimistic” in his communication with employees.
Apparently, after being acquired by Sony in 2022, Bungie thought anything was possible: They hired hundreds of new employees and distributed them across a ton of projects instead of focusing on Destiny 2, which Schreier describes as the “chief money maker,” i.e. the main source of income.
The projects are said to have included mobile versions of Destiny, remakes of old games and completely new franchises.
Schreier compares this misjudgment that one can do anything with the failure of the BioWare MMO Anthem and the once popular studio Arkane, which closed in May 2024.
2023 was apparently a bad year for Bungie
How did it go wrong? Bungie’s big problems began to emerge in 2023. Destiny 2’s major Lightfall expansion led to player records but left the community disappointed.
The planned Extraction shooter marathon didn’t really come together and the big story finale The Final Shape also took longer than planned. The grim situation is said to have been discussed in a meeting at the end of 2023. Parsons told the staff that the company had missed its sales targets by 45% and was losing money.
Bungie then postponed The Final Shape and Marathon, both of which received new management. Around 100 employees were laid off.
According to the report, employees hoped that more time on The Final Shape would lead to a better product, but even the positive reviews could not prevent job cuts that were already well underway at that point.
In a blog post in which Parsons announced the layoffs on July 31, the CEO admitted that the company had become too big. Instead of “Bungie Magic,” he said, “We were overly ambitious.”
The expansion The Final Shape was a beacon of hope for the employees:
Destiny 2 shows the launch trailer for The Final Shape
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Destiny 3 was not cancelled – it never existed
What kind of game was that? As Schreier makes clear, a successor to Destiny 2 was never in development. Instead, work was being done on a title called Payback, which would take place in the Destiny universe but would deviate far from the tried and tested formula. So it would be more of a spin-off than a sequel.
Payback is said to have taken on elements from Warframe and Genshin Impact. Instead of first person, players should explore the world in third person and work together to defeat monsters and solve puzzles. It has now been announced that the project has been discontinued, with people involved being fired or put on Marathon, which is due to be released in 2025.
What happens next? Destiny 2 will probably take a different direction with the new director Tyson Green, which some of the employees interviewed are optimistic about. The “money maker” will continue to receive updates, but instead of large paid expansions, the aim is apparently to convince existing and new players with smaller content drops.
The remaining Bungie employees will now have to implement these plans with fewer people and tighter schedules. And all this in a studio that probably doesn’t have much in common with the one it had three years ago: fans are happy that not so many Destiny developers were fired, but the reality is different