Bungie faces layoffs as Destiny 2 support ends and Marathon takes focus
Bungie is heading into another layoff cycle as Destiny 2 winds down, with no Destiny 3 plan and Marathon still delayed.
Bungie is confronting the ugliest version of a live-service ending: Destiny 2’s support is fading just as the studio itself is being asked to shrink. With no Destiny 3 in the pipeline and no new project ready to absorb the people tied to Destiny 2, the move away from one giant service game is colliding with the hard reality of fewer jobs, fewer safety nets, and a narrower future.
That pressure is not new in Seattle, Washington. On July 31, 2024, Bungie said 220 roles would be eliminated, about 17% of its workforce. In the same restructuring, 155 roles were set to move into Sony Interactive Entertainment, and one incubation project was spun out into a new PlayStation studio. Bungie said the cuts were driven by rising development costs, industry shifts, broader economic conditions, and a need to focus resources on Destiny and Marathon. It also said its talent had been stretched too thin across multiple incubation projects.
The company had already been contracting before that. Bloomberg reporting later said Bungie let go of an undisclosed number of staffers in October 2023 after delaying Destiny 2: The Final Shape, and that the studio shrank from about 1,300 employees to roughly 850 after the 2024 layoffs. Jason Schreier has said the decision not to move immediately to Destiny 3 after The Final Shape was largely cost-related, a reminder that even for one of the biggest names in live-service gaming, the economics can shut doors that used to look permanent.
Marathon has not provided an easy escape valve. Bungie announced on June 17, 2025 that the game would miss its September 23, 2025 release date and needed more development time after Alpha testing and community feedback pushed the team to refocus the project. That delay left Bungie leaning harder on a smaller set of bets at exactly the moment its Destiny operation was being reduced.
The money behind the studio tells the same story. Sony bought Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, and Sony’s FY2024 results added more context to the pressure surrounding the acquisition. Bloomberg reported in May 2026 that Sony later took a 120.1 billion yen, or about $765 million, impairment loss tied to Bungie assets. Bungie’s official news feed was still carrying Destiny 2 and Marathon updates as of late April 2026, but player trust now hangs on whether the studio can keep its promises while it keeps cutting back.
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