Developers of the Destiny franchise and the Halo games, Bungie have been in the news since Sony acquired the studio last year. The deal was completed for around $3.7 Billion which also included $1.2 Billion for staff retention. Despite that, the studio still had a round of layoffs earlier this week on the 30th of October.
The number of employees laid off isn’t yet known, and new leaked info has now revealed more grim details from the studio. Bungie is not the first studio to have laid off several of its developers this year, as 2023 has seen layoffs across several gaming studios. New details have now emerged from the studio revealing the reason behind the delay for one of the titles and also about burnt-out developers.
Leaked Info Reveals Grim Details About Destiny 2 Developer
More details have come out about Bungie, the studio that Sony acquired last year for its live-service games. Popular Streamer Aztecross shared a bunch of details about the Destiny developer in his stream yesterday, following it with a thread of posts on X (formerly Twitter).
Aztecross has since deleted his posts on X where he shared all the details in brief, including the YouTube video as well. Posts by Aztecross were earlier linked and discussed on a Reddit post. The article below will go into detail about what was shared by Aztecross.
One of those revolved around the delayed title Marathon, which is said to be an Extraction Looter Shooter. It was revealed that Marathon was said to be a Battle Royale game, after seeing a spike of Battle Royale games from other studios. However, the game was switched to a Looter-Shooter after the studio noticed the success of Escape from Tarkov.
Aztecross also revealed that Bungie had prepared a playable build of Marathon specifically for testing after having invited Escape from Tarkov PVP players over to try out Marathon. It proved to be a disaster as none of the players who tried out the game were left impressed by the title, which led to it being delayed further to 2025.
Aztecross expressed his surprise about Destiny PVP players not being considered to try Marathon, before going on to say Bungie may have decided against inviting Destiny players to avoid disappointing their own fans.
More Details Shared About Bungie Developers Working on Marathon
Aztecross went on to reveal a lot more about Bungie, saying the studio’s earlier plans included three other games apart from Marathon, including Destiny, Matter, and an untitled game from the studio’s “incubation team”. One of those games, Matter is said to have been canceled altogether back in December 2020.
Aztecross had also revealed that the team working on Marathon included burnt-out developers who had earlier worked on Destiny 2. The Reddit post about the Aztecross revelations had fans wondering why Bungie had decided to work on four games at the same time, given the studio’s limited resources after all the layoffs.
Bungie had recently laid off a bunch of developers who were reportedly not even allowed to exchange any contact info with their team members. While there were no official details of the number of employees who were laid off, it was leaked that the number was close to 100 employees including studio veterans. Bungie’s upper management was also revealed to have comprised of “folks you’ve never seen“.
Bungie CEO Pete Parons had taken to X to post about the recent layoffs showing his support to those affected and that he would “highly recommend each and every one of them.” Following the layoffs, however, Destiny 2‘s final expansion, The Final Shape, is now expected to come out next year by June.
The Reddit post also received comments about the $1.2 Billion that Sony had specifically paid Bungie for employee retention, about which Paul Tassi, another insider news provider, had posted that the layoffs were solely a Bungie decision and Sony wasn’t involved in any way.
Tassi had also mentioned that any employee benefits would have lasted just one additional day post the layoff as the coverage was only meant to last until the end of the month. Bungie’s near future looks quite uncertain at the moment, and here’s hoping the studio turns things around over the next few months.
Follow us for more entertainment coverage on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
