“We were overly ambitious,” says CEO

The news follows months of reporting that all is not well at Bungie - the companymade an undisclosed number of reductions last year, and wererumoured to be facing a full Sony takeover, with much riding on the fortunes ofDestiny 2’s Final Shape DLC.

Writing on the developer’s site today, CEO Pete Parsons gave a compressed account of how Bungie have ended up in such dire straits. “For over five years, it has been our goal to ship games in three enduring, global franchises,” he wrote. “To realize that ambition, we set up several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams. We eventually realized that this model stretched our talent too thin, too quickly. It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development - Destiny and Marathon.

Parsons’s comments about “overly ambitious” expansion during the Covid lockdown years continue a depressing theme. Back at GDC, Larian CEO Swen Vincketold methat many CEOs are guilty of short-term thinking and fixating on their own bonuses, with staff further down the ladder regarded as disposable.

Perhaps anticipating such comments, Parsons notes that the layoffs “affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles”, though he appears to have kept his job. The integration of other roles into Sony Interactive Entertainment, meanwhile, has helped “save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force.”

Bungie’s remaining 850 or so staff will now “focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon”. The latter isa PvP and loot-focussed rebootof the shooter that established Bungie as an FPS developer to watch, prior toHalo: Combat Evolved. It was reportedly subject to acreative leadership shake-up in March. As for Destiny, The Final Shape waswell-receivedand is a “success” in Parson’s view, but evidently hasn’t done well enough for the paymasters.

Several now-former Bungie developers have shared the news on social media. Among those hit are sound designerTzvi Sherman, whose credits include Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, artistWeston T. Jones, formerly of Rooster Teeth, and Marathon engine/SDET producerDaryl Nelson, formerly of Blizzard and The Pokemon Company.

Other developers have warm words for Bungie’s leadership. “Inexcusable,“wroteglobal community lead Dylan Gafner, who still has his job. “Industry leading talent being lost, yet again. Accountability falling upon the workers who have pushed the needle to deliver for our community time and time again.” Former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert, who was laid off last year, hasbrandedParsons a “liar” and a “thief” and called on him to step down.

Best of luck to everybody affected.