Sony Group Corp’s Bungie unit is planning a significant number of layoffs as it ends development on the long-running online shooter game Destiny 2, according to people familiar with the studio’s plans.
The company doesn’t have a new project lined up for Destiny 2’s development team after the game comes to an end next month, according to the people, who asked to not be identified because they weren’t authorised to speak to the press. Bungie doesn’t plan to immediately enter production on a Destiny 3, they said. The number of job cuts was not known.
On Thursday, Bungie confirmed that the upcoming June 9 update of Destiny 2 will be the final content for the game. The studio promised that it will remain online for players to access.
"While our love for Destiny 2 has not changed, it has become clear that after The Final Shape, we have reached the time for our shared worlds, and Destiny, to live beyond Destiny 2,” Bungie wrote in a blog post.
Bungie’s staff are looking to pitch and begin development of new projects, including in the Destiny franchise, but none have been greenlit and there’s no guarantee that any will move forward in a challenging market that has led companies like Sony to raise prices and cut costs. Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Bungie is one of the more expensive studios to operate, given the cost of paying tech-savvy workers in suburban Seattle and the longevity of its staff.
Bungie is also investing more in the extraction shooter Marathon, which has not met sales expectations since its March release but which the company hopes will expand its player base over time. The studio has moved some staff from the Destiny team to Marathon in recent months.
A representative for Sony didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Destiny was once one of the most popular games on the market, generating more than US$500mil (RM1.98bil) in revenue when it launched in 2014 and inspiring countless imitators. In 2017, Bungie put out a sequel, and after parting ways with publisher Activision Blizzard Inc, the studio decided to continuously update Destiny 2 with new content and expansions rather than release further entries in the franchise. The results were mixed, but millions of players stuck with the game, which became free-to-play in 2019.
In 2022, Sony purchased Bungie for US$3.6bil (RM14.29bil), and in subsequent years the studio laid off hundreds of employees and cancelled several projects including Payback, a game set in the world of Destiny that was envisioned as the future of the franchise. Bungie released an expansion that appeared to conclude the game’s story, The Final Shape, to rave reviews in 2024. The player count has dropped significantly since then. The most recent release, a Star Wars-themed update, brought in a fraction of The Final Shape’s players.
Bungie’s leaders had talked about ways to retool Destiny 2 to make it more approachable for new players, but earlier this year they instead decided to end development of the game, partly to shift resources to Marathon. – Bloomberg
