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Destiny 2

Bungie

Fans are working through stages of grief now that support for Destiny 2 is ending, and the franchise is likely being shelved for years, at best. This has affected Bungie itself, of course, and the studio is grappling with what this means for the future of the company and their jobs in the short term.

Here’s more of a breakdown of what’s gone on inside Bungie, part recap, part new information from my sources.

• The decision to end support for Destiny 2 and move at least some amount of resources over to Marathon was made earlier this year.
• Work continued on future Destiny 2 content, including future expansions like Shattered Cycle, and did not stop immediately when this decision was made.
• This was because the vast majority of Bungie did not know about Destiny 2 support being dropped right up until it was publicly announced.
• There were certain teams within Bungie that did know what was coming, some who were working on “final” Destiny content for the June update, some who had already been moved to Marathon.
• These people “begged” leadership to tell more people and keeping so many people in the dark divided the studio, and these in-the-know teams felt extremely isolated.

• The exact scope and timing of layoffs remain mostly unknown. They are significant, but not immediately imminent. At a town hall after the announcement, multiple questions were asked about layoffs but were dodged by leadership.
• As previously reported, there are no other projects greenlit at Bungie right now, including a number of pitches that used the Destiny IP without being a full sequel.
• Destiny 3 is neither in production nor greenlit. Sony has been wary of committing to such an expensive undertaking in a market that is in flux and more challenging than ever. There is a reason you do not see many sprawling MMOs like Destiny make it to release these days. Right now, Sony is too risk-averse for something like that.
• Sony is supporting Marathon with more resources and what will now be at least some number of ex-Destiny workers in addition to the ones that have already moved over. The game will get some time to try to find its legs, and there is no mandate to try to turn it into the new Destiny. New PvP/PvE modes are meant to expand the playerbase, and larger teams are meant to put out more content now.
• There was always a lot riding on Marathon, but that’s even more true now as Bungie’s only active game. Destiny 2 ending and no new projects even greenlit means all Bungie’s revenue is coming from that game. The fate of Bungie will come down to how much Sony wants to continue to invest in the studio (which it does still value at close to a $3 billion asset) in terms of time or money, and how small they think it needs to be to be sustainable going forward.

The main questions now are:

• How many layoffs there will be
• How big the team supporting Marathon will be going forward
• How much time Marathon has to “prove itself” and what milestones it must hit
• Will any other projects get greenlit at Bungie, what are they and what is their timeline

Those I don’t have answers to yet. But we’ll see what happens as the weeks and months press on.

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