Bungie has laid off 220 employees less than two months after the release of its most successful Destiny 2 expansion
12% of the workforce will also be moving to Sony
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Bungie has announced another round of layoffs, affecting 220 employees.
The news broke in a newblog postfrom Bungie CEO Pete Parsons, who wrote that due to “rising costs of development and industry shifts”, as well as “enduring economic conditions”, theDestiny 2studio has made the decision to make substantial changes to its cost structure and “focus development efforts entirely onDestinyandMarathon. "
This decision means that 220 development roles have been eliminated, representation 17% of Bungie’s workforce, affecting every level of the company, including executive and senior leader roles. This comes less than one year after thestudio cut an unknown number of jobs.
“Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of which have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie,” Parsons said. “Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. For everyone affected by this job reduction, we will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus and health coverage.”
Later, Parsons said that this will be a “challenging time” for Bungie and confirms that it still has over 850 team members buildingDestinyandMarathon.
In addition, Parsons explained that Bungie will be deepening its integration withSonyInteractive Entertainment - who bought the studio in February 2022 - by moving 155 employees - roughly 12% of the workforce - over to the publisher over the next few quarters.
“SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force,” the CEO explained.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
This morning, we shared an important update with the Bungie team on the difficult decision to eliminate 220 roles at Bungie. You can read the full statement below.https://t.co/FVkWNSWDtZJuly 31, 2024
Parsons also took this time to announced that Bungie will be moving one of its projects - a brand-new action game set in a sci-fi fantasy universe - to PlayStation Studios to form a new studio.
The layoffs come less than two months after the launch ofDestiny 2’sThe Final Shapeexpansion, which has proved to be the game’s most successful downloadable content (DLC) to date.
Parsons acknowledged this, saying, “I realise all of this is hard news, especially following the success we have seen withThe Final Shape. But as we’ve navigated the broader economic realities over the last year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials.”
The post continues, with Parsons explaining that for the past five years, Bungie has worked to release games across “three enduring, global franchises” and to realize this, has set up “several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams.”
However, this model has “stretched our talent too thin, too quickly”, and has “forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development –DestinyandMarathon. "
“We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red,” Parsons added. “After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed, and we did everything we could to avoid today’s outcome. Even with exhaustive efforts undertaken across our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were simply not enough.”
You might also like…
Best Dragon Age games in 2024 - every series entry ranked
I reviewed the PS5 Pro and recommend these 7 enhanced games to try first
Lego will let you build Sir Ernest Shackleton’s iconic lost ship, the Endurance, in its next Icons set
