As Details Emerge About Bungie Layoffs, Destiny’s Future Is Looking Grim

After being hit with a second round of layoffs, details are starting to emerge that indicate some major issues are occuring at Bungie.

In his Game File newsletter, Stephen Totilo has claimed that Bungie senior management may have overstated the studio’s financial prospects to Sony during their $3.6 billion acquisition of the veteran developer in 2022. The most recent round of cuts was required to reduce the endless bleeding of money from the company.

According to an IGN report from Kat Bailey, sources made up of former staff of the troubled developer used the term “insolvency” to describe the inevitable fate of the company without taking these steps. This is damning for a senior team that has, within the last two years, gone through an expensive acquisition.

Finally, Jason Schreier of Bloomberg is putting together a story but has already countered the narrative on Twitter that Destiny 3 has been canceled, because the game was never truly in development. A project called Payback was live in the studio but had been canceled a while ago, likely as part of these early cost-saving measures that Bungie enacted before arriving at yet more layoffs.

Things are incredibly messy right now as details continue to emerge, and sadly, at the heart of the story are hundreds of talented developers who are now in need of work. The future of Destiny itself is looking shakey, as it seems unlikely that the team will have the size or scope to execute on what had been the plans for the franchise.