Bungie cites ‘quality miss’ with Destiny 2: Lightfall amid major layoffs

Destiny 2 developer Bungie is laying off 220 people, CEO Pete Parsons announced Wednesday in a post on the Bungie website. Bungie previously employed more than 1,000 people to support the ongoing Destiny 2, its next game Marathon, and “several incubation projects.” The company is cutting that number down to 850: 220 people have been laid off, 155 people will be moved to Sony Interactive Entertainment, and around 75 to a new studio, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier.

“These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles,” Parsons wrote. “Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of which have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie. Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. For everyone affected by this job reduction, we will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus and health coverage.”

Parsons cited several reasons for the layoffs — “rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions,” topped off with what Parsons described as a “quality miss” with Destiny 2 expansion Lightfall. He added that Bungie took “exhaustive efforts” to mitigate layoffs.

Beyond the layoffs, Parsons said Sony Interactive Entertainment will bring over staff to build a new studio to develop one of the aforementioned incubation projects — “an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe.” Parsons later added that the incubation program “stretched our talent too thin, too quickly.” He continued: “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.”

Bungie’s latest Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape, was released on June 4, and was a critical success. Lightfall missed Bungie’s expected revenue by 45%, and Parsons blamed the expansion for waning player retention, according to a Bloomberg report from October 2023. Lightfall was released in February 2023, after which Bungie laid off around 100 workers. Shortly thereafter, Parsons spoke directly to players in a message published on the Bungie website: “We know we have lost a lot of your trust. Destiny needs to surprise and delight. We haven’t done this enough and that’s going to change.”

Lightfall, while described by Parsons as a “quality miss,” still helped Destiny 2 reach its highest concurrent player count on Steam during its launch — a number that was just nearly matched with the launch of The Final Shape.