In a report published by Bloomberg, it has been revealed that Bungie – the creator of Halo and Destiny – has been hit by a round of layoffs. It’s the latest of many companies to suffer at the hands of a redundancy wave – but it isn’t the firm’s first in this current economic climate. However, this particular wave has been more impactful, and as a result, Destiny 2’s The Final Shape DLC and Marathon, the in-development extraction shooter, have been delayed.

It isn’t yet known how many staff have been laid off from Bungie, but early reports suggest it’s ‘dozens of people’ that the wave has impacted. There are some relatively high-level departures, too – and the shock of these redundancies is rippling across social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter (X). Back in 2022, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion but kept it operating as an independent developer.

It Goes On

Image Credit: Bungie

This year, we’ve seen tens of thousands of people lose their jobs across the gaming and esports industries as companies adjust to constantly tightening conditions in the global economic climate. It has been a disastrous year for thousands of people suddenly uprooted and left without any source of income, and typically, the companies that they go on to join are also at risk of layoffs.

In a statement, the CEO of Bungie, Pete Parsons, spoke about the layoffs, but some critics have labelled him ‘tone deaf’ in his response:

In one comment, a user wrote: ‘Your senior social lead probably would have recommended against this post, which you have known had you not let them go. Pity.’

This year, some studios have completely shut their doors as a result of a harsher climate. For instance, months ago, Volition (Saints Row) closed up shop after more than two decades in the business. These days, a single low-performing game can be enough to wipe a studio off the map. Even the top-most companies in the space aren’t immune, as at the start of the year, mass layoffs occurred at the likes of Microsoft.

Related: Epic Games Cuts 900 Employee Contracts

What Does This Mean For Bungie’s Games?

Marathon, the futuristic extraction shooter that was revealed last year, will be delayed to later in 2025, and The Final Shape DLC for Destiny 2 will be pushed back to the middle of 2024. This news comes off the back of revelations that Sony spent $1.2 billion on ’employee retention’ in 2022. It was specifically referenced that this payout was to ‘keep Destiny 2 developers from leaving Bungie’. At present, it seems that social teams have been impacted the most at Bungie, and developers aren’t yet affected.

Long-term, the delays for Bungie may be the only impact we see. If the core development teams remain, then the rollout of these games and expansions shouldn’t be hit too hard, but that’s not the core point of this discourse. At the end of the day, it’s tragic that yet another company has felt the need to cut employees out to survive.

Related: Was ‘Every Employee’ Let Go From The Guard?

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