Bungie Lays Off 220 Employees Despite The Final Shape's Success

Despite the success of Destiny 2’s The Final Shape expansion, which concluded the 10-year-long light versus dark saga, developer Bungie has been hit with another major layoff wave. This is their second layoff wave since being acquired by Sony in 2022. This decision affects 220 employees, which is 17% of the studio’s workforce.

Destiny 2 The Final Shape received an impressive 89 critic score and a 7.8 user score in Metacritic, the franchise’s highest score to date. According to Steamdb, Destiny 2 reached its second all-time peak as the launch of The Final Shape expansion garnered 314,634 concurrent players on one platform, a couple of thousands shy from it’s all-time peak on Steam.

“These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles,” said Bungie CEO Pete Parsons in an announcement post at Bungie’s official website.

Parsons then explained how the company reached this decision:

“For over five years, it has been our goal to ship games in three enduring, global franchises. To realize that ambition, we set up several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams. We eventually realized that this model stretched our talent too thin, too quickly.  It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development – Destiny and Marathon. “

“Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion ran headlong into a broad economic slowdown, a sharp downturn in the games industry, our quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to ensure both projects deliver at the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red.”

Another major change within the company is that one of Bungie’s incubation projects, described as an “action game set in a new science-fantasy universe,” will be transferred out of Bungie, with development continuing under a newly formed studio within PlayStation Studios.

What does this mean for the Future of Destiny and Bungie?

It’s hard to have a clear idea of the future of Destiny 2 as the game is coming off the final conclusion of a narrative they’ve been telling since the franchise started back in 2014. After the conclusion of The Final Shape expansion, new stories are slowly being told to carry the effects of the saga’s conclusion, but many, including myself, are unsure if Bungie’s plans for the series will be able to replicate the same success.

As for Bungie as a studio, it’s incredibly sad that the success of The Final Shape expansion didn’t stop the bleeding. It seems that the layoffs were inevitable, and the success of the expansion merely determined the extent of the impact. The loss of 220 employees is significant, more than double the number of layoffs from October 2023 when the company laid off 100 employees. This is demoralizing to see, especially since Bungie was acquired by Sony in 2022, with leadership promising no layoffs post-acquisition. This is obviously not the case.

The future of Destiny 2 is now uncertain within its community. Some players remain optimistic, while others consider The Final Shape expansion as the “true end” of the game. For players who have committed to the game for years, it’s a hard pill to swallow seeing such an amazing expansion followed by job losses. As of this writing, 850 employees remain at Bungie, focusing on Destiny 2 and continuing development on their next shooter title, Marathon.

Are you a player of Destiny 2? What do you think about the layoffs and the future of the franchise?

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