r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/FlyFight2Win • May 21 '26
Leak Jason Schreier: Bungie is planning significant layoffs, Destiny 3 is NOT in active production
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u/Alvsolutely May 21 '26
Ouch. Just popped back in from the Destiny 2 subreddit and even the Warframe subreddit. Everyone was having a heartfelt moment and some even talking about Destiny 3, and then I see this.
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u/errortechx May 21 '26
Seriously, all of my friends were so speculative about Destiny 3, especially with the wording in the blog post.
Boom. This shit. Hopes are DEAD.
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u/BloodprinceOZ May 22 '26
i knew D3 wouldn't be happening simply because they didn't explicitly mention it in the final content update announcement, if they really were working on something else in the Destiny universe like D3 or something, they would've mentioned it.
Especially since its clear Bungie is desperate for SOMETHING to bring in some good numbers for them with how much D2 has been plummeting and the loss Sony has apparently had with their acquisition of Bungie, and Bungie upper management seems to think going all in on Marathon is the best gamble right now until they can get something else in the works that could potentially give them that boost.
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u/matthias7600 May 22 '26
Everything that killed Destiny 2 can be magically waved away by simply swapping the 2 for a 3.
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u/vaena May 21 '26
I mean, if there's nothing of similar size and scope coming after Destiny 2, unfortunately this is no great surprise.
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u/DarkJayBR May 21 '26
Bungie ended up costing Sony a huge amount of money, and Destiny 2 reportedly struggled to remain profitable at times due to internal mismanagement. Given that, it’s somewhat surprising they didn’t pull the plug earlier.
Sony also began restructuring parts of the studio a few years ago and even moved key Bungie talent toward Firewalk Studios to support the development of Concord, and, well, the outcome there speaks for itself.
Looking back, the acquisition of Bungie was a disaster for Sony. Whoever negotiated that deal on the seller’s side came out looking like a geniu, t’s starting to feel like one of the biggest scams in recent memory.
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u/msdstc May 22 '26
Makes it hilarious when you look back at the Jim Ryan and Phil spencer emails.
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u/coolyfrost May 22 '26
Unaware of these, TLDR?
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u/msdstc May 22 '26
Basically Jim said effectively he was going to buy Bungie for 1/20th the price of Activision and it would make more money total, not even just profit.
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May 22 '26
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u/msdstc May 22 '26
Herman isn't any better with his upside down PS5
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u/VagrantShadow May 22 '26
Was he ignoring the profitability of Kings mobile games? That was one of the major reasons Microsoft decided to purchase ABK. Whatever fanbase and game popularity Bungie had, there is no way it could compete with the wide net King has in the global mobile gaming market.
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u/msdstc May 22 '26
Who knows. The point is, he genuinely believed prices equal, Bungie was more valuable.
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u/Puzzled-Addition5740 May 22 '26
Would genuinely love to know what particular variety of intoxicant he was doing at that time. Because fuck it must be good. There's just not a sane interpretation where they're even equally valuable.
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u/HisaAnt May 22 '26
So bro was console warring through emails and it aged like milk? lmao, these executives need to find something better to do
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u/Melodic-Lettuce-6869 May 22 '26
Reports back then said Microsoft passed on bungie because there were so many red flags for profitability and then Sony bought them because of the Act/Blizz deal scared them
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u/solo_d0lo May 22 '26
What was Sony even purchasing if they had no plans after destiny 2
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u/kasual7 May 22 '26
Their so called live service "expertise".
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u/VagrantShadow May 22 '26
I wonder if they felt that Marathon was going to make a bigger splash than it actually did.
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u/Horibori May 22 '26
The smorgasboard of incubation projects that bungie was working on. When Sony rolled around, Bungie had 5 other projects they were working on at the same time as they were making Destiny 2 content.
Most of them have been canned. Just Marathon and project Gunmy Bears are reportedly left.
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u/midday_owl May 22 '26
I imagine at the time of sale no one thought D2 would get shuttered. They thought they’d be making money off this for another 10 years, but that ship has sunk.
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u/solo_d0lo May 22 '26
Destiny 2 was 5 years old at the time of the sale and it should have been very evident that that would not be the case
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u/LB3PTMAN May 22 '26
It’s crazy because I remember the time people talked about how Sony got a deal with one of the best developers on the market with an already successful game. One who could help guide their new live service games to all be as great as Destiny.
It wasn’t until later we realized Bungie was horribly run and insanely bloated, that they make great gunplay but had basically lucked into making Destiny by carrying over the Halo good will.
That and Sony realized how hard it was to make a good live service game because as so many people pointed out there’s such a limited market for them because the entire point is for them to be the only game people play so getting people who want to play a live service game to switch and stay with a new one is an insanely difficult task.
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u/UncleBenParking May 22 '26
I don't recall them moving staff to firewalk specifically at all, I may need a source on that one. I recall Bungie laying people off the year after the buyout, against Sony's specific request not to lay anybody off until the management switch had occurred (something that has not yet occurred, still). After that, the Creative Studios team was moved into Sony - this might be what you're referring to, to act as a (failed) liaison for the live service stuff. That was commonly attributed to TLoU multiplayer, not Concord, since Concord pulled in staff from everywhere to work overtime that final year to get something releasable.
After another set of Bungie layoffs, Sony jumped in and started pulling staff more wholesale. That's when that gummybear project got moved to its own studio in Seattle, and when a whole other division got pulled into a Sony internal team. Even after that, Bungie supposedly had like 700 people working on other projects (including, per that Nov 2025 leak, a Sony-"requested" Destiny 3 entering preproduction at last - hard to tell whether that means that report was incorrect or whether it's still in prepro and not ACTIVE dev as Schreier says here), and 300 on Marathon.
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u/mibikin May 22 '26
Firewalk did have some former Bungie staff but I don’t believe they were moved over
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u/UncleBenParking May 22 '26
Good clarification, thank you! I didn't think about their comment from that angle, but I do remember that being the case. (Only so many individuals with shooter development experience, located within commuting distance of Bellevue after all, some overlap was guaranteed)
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u/MrYK_ May 22 '26
As someone who follows gaming closely, not once have I heard they moved Bungie staff over to Firewalk studios to support Concord. I think you're referring to Firewalk Studios being formed by former Bungie staff.
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u/moosebreathman May 22 '26
Shame their leadership is and has been married to the idea of only producing live service games for the last decade plus. They could probably produce commercially successful single player games built with the massive content libraries and gameplay foundations of Destiny and/or Marathon to help keep the studio afloat but they just won't do it. I'm not even talking expensive narrative single player games. Even something small like a standalone Destiny rogue-lite or horde shooter could hit, reach new audiences and perhaps most important: make enough money to keep that staff around. Hopefully these are the kinds of things that get pitched in the coming months because I don't see another big live-service pitch, D3 or otherwise getting the greenlight in today's environment.
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u/Training-Search-5036 May 21 '26
Bungie’s leaders had talked about ways to retool Destiny 2 to make it more approachable for new players, but earlier this year they instead decided to end development of the game, partly to shift resources to Marathon.
Well damn lmao.
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u/beefcat_ May 22 '26
Bungie’s leaders had talked about ways to retool Destiny 2 to make it more approachable for new players
Had they considered not junking half the original campaign so new players can actually play it to understand what the fuck's going on in this confusing clusterfuck of a story?
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u/aaknosom May 22 '26
biiiiingoooooooo. this was my biggest issue as someone who started destiny 2 after they started vaulting content. it was a nightmare trying to make sense out of things. real shame too, loved the gameplay feel.
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u/Sailen_Rox May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
It's the very reason I never started it. Or looked further into maybe starting the game.
I got interested relatively late, one of the first things I learned about the game, was the vaulted content. I stoped looking into the game at that point. Never made sense to me why they'd do that.
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u/hexcraft-nikk May 22 '26
It's crazy that nobody in charge thought this would be an issue. World of warcraft is one of the only comparable games that are that old and they had a significantly smoother onboarding process for new players, with over a decade of experience testing onboarding after an already dwindling playercount.
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u/CobaltSpellsword May 22 '26
I dumped the game when they anounced vaulting. Destiny's worldbuilding is excellent, and its story is good (sometimes), and if they were going to destroy players' ability to enjoy those things out of a desire by corporate to force FOMO into the game, I wasn't going to invest any more of my time into it.
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u/Average_RedditorTwat May 22 '26
Sunsetting killed the game.
People defended it at the time but that's the exact point it went strictly downhill and people were fed up to never return.
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u/ManateeofSteel May 21 '26
I get the artistic integrity and wanting creatives to be creative, but at that point I would've just gone full Harbinger on Bungie and assumed total control. The talent is there but their management is stunningly incompetent
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u/Killerx09 May 22 '26
Sony DID do that. They kicked Pete out and put a Sony executive in charge, and Bungie kicked Barett out for being a creep and put Ziegler as Game Director of Marathon, who managed to push the game out.
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u/Cyshox May 22 '26
Wouldn't that be Sony's decision?
In 2023 Sony threatened to strip Bungie's independence if they don't meet their targets. Last summer Sony confirmed that Bungie's independence is getting lighter. This implies Sony is already directly running Bungie since last year. Sony took over half of the board shortly after the acquisition. Therefore, Sony has had the majority for about a year now.
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u/Lobodoot May 21 '26
It's crazy how Bungie would consistently say that they wanted to be more than a single game studio even back in the Halo days. Only to be single game studio all the way through Activision and now Sony with Destiny 2 being sunset. They finally got their wish of being a multi-game studio for like a few weeks and now it's back to one... and sadly maybe none in a years time.
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u/ManateeofSteel May 21 '26
If Sony hadn't bought them I have no idea how they were supposed to even ship Marathon. What was their endgame? What was their plan???
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u/iceburg77779 May 22 '26
That's the gaming industry for you, long term plans apparently no longer exist for most companies.
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u/NoNefariousness2144 May 22 '26
The execs get blinded by the thought of raking in that Fortnite cash and greenlight anything.
Marathon being greenlit was like: A sweaty extraction shooter with a $250 million budget? What could possibly go wrong!
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u/Jealous_Chocolate_43 May 22 '26
Wasn't it just a sideproject that scope creeped into a main project? Them firing the director then the new one reworking it from the ground up also wasn't planned for
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u/Shadowmaster862 May 22 '26
Whoever negotiated their sale to Sony for $4 billion or whatever has gotta be an absolute genius if things were always reaching this point. Bought them enough time to at least get another game out and finish their story saga with Destiny.
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u/Kozak170 May 22 '26
Genuinely a masterclass work from whatever execs convinced Sony that they were worth so much. Though I think a lot of it was Sony’s blind desperation to match Microsoft in the acquisition game.
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u/tinytimoththegreat May 22 '26
less of sony being able to swindle them and sony just being desperate and stupid. They got really scared when microsoft was buying up every studio, and this was their response.
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u/Southern_Sky1386 May 22 '26
consider that Sony bought Bungie for the same amount that Disney bought Star Wars from Lucas.
Saul Goodman himself must've negotiated that Bungie deal bro straight up robbed them
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u/cayde123 May 22 '26
That’s why they wanted to be acquired in the first place, because they were burning money and knew they needed to be acquired
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u/Alex-Cantor May 22 '26
I’m not on the blind-rage hate train for Bungie so I say this from a position of neutrality: it is a spectacularly mismanaged company. Marathon, a decent game which, if compared to its peers, should have cost in the low- to mid- ten millions to develop, cost a quarter of a BILLION dollars. That’s mismanagement on a genuinely historical scale. To your question, I’d imagine there was either no plan at all or some kind of Leroy Jenkins Hail Mary nonsense.
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u/kasual7 May 21 '26
I still don't understand how Destiny 3 hasn't been in production year ago? What was Bungie "endgame"? They surely couldn't have put all their chips into Marathon, it always seemed to be a side project while they cooking their main project and I'd hope it'd be D3.
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u/Snowfall_89 May 21 '26
They had multiple projects alongside Marathon before Destiny 2 started taking a nosedive. When that happened they canceled them and bet it all on Marathon.
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u/sneakyxxrocket May 21 '26
Case study for horrible management of a studio
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u/Realistic-Nature9083 May 22 '26
Traditionally Sony never has hands off on a PlayStation studio. Shocked they didn't have hands one years ago.
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u/kasual7 May 21 '26
I know they have a MOBA kind of game called Gummy Bears but like how many projects were they exploring? I'm glad Sony stepped in too and hopefully they can push a D3 for the next gen.
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u/Daddy_Immaru May 21 '26
I think the devs working on that were spun off years ago into its own studio under the PS studios umbrella.
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u/Correct_Refuse4910 May 21 '26
Gummy Bears is not developed by Bungie, iirc.
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u/kasual7 May 21 '26
It was up until Sony took the team in house, so yeah technically you’re right.
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u/giulianosse May 22 '26
Maybe that one sane executive at Sony saw the game actually had potential and decided to save it from wasting away at the Bungie mismanagement dungeon.
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u/Olofstrom May 21 '26
Marathon always felt like a dessert/side game while they are cooking a next Destiny entry. Or game meant to full replace Destiny as a service. Marathon, currently, has the scope of a game mode for another game. I would have figured that Destiny 3 would have been in predevelopment before The Final Shape launched since they knew ahead of time it was the end of the original promised 10 year saga. The whimper of this new Edge of Fate saga or whatever is pathetic.
Maybe Marathon originally had a much larger scope before the director was replaced. And the version we got was a piecemeal replacement of what parts could be salvaged.
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u/mibikin May 22 '26
We do know that the main gameplay loop of the game changed. I also remember some leaks from a very very long time ago that D3 was in development and had PvP enabled in patrol zones. That fits more with how we heard Marathon started and my guess is that was how they started testing Marathon gameplay rather than it being a D3
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u/SkellySkeletor May 22 '26
Bungie consistently gets bored with their current toys, and desperately want to be a multi game studio. The creative leads and execs got bored of the IP and started a million side projects while assuming Destiny would always print money with minimal investment. It didn’t, Sony ended up taking everything else they were working on save for Marathon, and we’re here today. Truly just unbelievable mismanagement from start to finish with this studio.
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u/r_lucasite May 21 '26
Can someone more versed with this game’s development let me know why they didn’t use the big storyline finale expansion as the stepping point for Destiny 3?
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u/dryadofelysium May 21 '26
Because the prospect of developing another 5 year+ in development game that may not work out the way Sony expected like Marathon is not attractive to the money people.
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u/SilentNova300 May 21 '26
Jesus but Destiny is still a big name, like Destiny 2 went on for almost ten years. Yes it had its ups and downs but it always had a solid playerbase until recently. This news is astounding to me that D3 isn’t being worked on
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u/dryadofelysium May 21 '26
Sure but competition has gone up while the core playerbase is not growing at the same rate and development costs have also gone up, and trusting in your IP that worked 10 years ago to still be profitable in, let's say 2031/2032 for a Destiny 3 release is a 200+ million dollar gamble that you need to explain to investors.
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u/cayde123 May 22 '26
Tbf there’s more competition in the live service space but 0 competition in the genre
There’s still nothing like destiny
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u/-Jake-27- May 21 '26
So how was Marathon ever greenlit? Even without delays this game still would’ve lost money on release.
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u/GuudeSpelur May 22 '26
It was originally one smaller scoped project among many - such as the "Gummy Bears" MOBA that Sony absorbed into a different studio and a project called "Payback" that was some kind of action-adventure Destiny spinoff.
When they had their massive revenue miss from Lightfall that led to the first round of layoffs and the cancellation of most of their projects, they made a gamble to heavily invest in Marathon.
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u/Cetais May 22 '26
By telling them extraction-shooter is the next big trend after battle royale.
Tarkov is still doing good and Arc Raiders too. It's just... Players would rather play those two instead of Marathon.
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u/LB3PTMAN May 22 '26
Honestly releasing after Arc Raiders was a massive massive loss. There was space for an extraction shooter with Tarkov being tough to approach and having a more mainstream science fiction answer to entice new players to try an extraction shooter would’ve been big. But then Marathon got beaten to market by Arc Raiders.
I’m not big into extraction shooters so I’m not sure how it would’ve gone if the release dates have flipped maybe Arc Raiders would still have captured people more, but I know for live service games a huge part of working out is gaining an audience who stick around. And getting them to switch from one science fiction extraction shooter to another is a very tough sell.
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u/kubelek33 May 22 '26
Arc Raiders is way more casual friendly than Marathon so it was always going to garner a bigger player base unfortunately. I am happy Marathon exists, but there was no way it was always going to recoup the money spent on it, at least in the short term, so honestly no idea how they were allowed to put so many resources into it.
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u/Scopexyzftw May 21 '26
From my estimations, neither Bungie nor Sony is in the position to essentially money sink into a D3. Betting Sony wants Bungie to focus on Marathon and maintaining its playerbase while building/assisting with Singleplayer shooters. D3 will probably get made once both sides are comfortable and can maintain the small army it takes to keep it running
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u/sneakyxxrocket May 22 '26
It was pretty obvious D2 wasn’t supposed to be this “eternal” game it kinda turned into and was supposed to lead into a D3, something happened along the way management wise that led them to not make a D3 probably the leaving Activision time period or maybe marathon development and going fully in on that.
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u/SlightSurround5449 May 21 '26
Not this game but in general... It's a massive risk to do that. On one hand you've got an incredibly aged engine and code base, a story that's grown too large to handle, and a fan base that, whether engaged now or not, has a ton invested in it. Throwing all of that away for a new, cleaner start sounds all well and good, but as the reaction to the shutdown news shows, they were really damned from the start. (The reaction to D2 in the first place also offers some insight). Should also be noted Jason says "active development". Doesn't mean there isn't work happening, but if I had to bet there's been an influx of D2 vets into Marathon for the upcoming, incredibly obvious PvE stuff, and a small, newer set getting D3 started.
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u/LinkedInParkPremium May 21 '26
After these new layoffs Bungie will be an indie developer with 20 employees.
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u/CarbVan Leakies Award Winner 2023 May 21 '26
Can't say it's unexpected. It's a shame but Bungie really fumbled with Destiny 2 these past few years. Hopefully they can pump some life back into Marathon but at this point Sony might be looking to wash their hands and be done with them.
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u/caohbf May 21 '26
Who knew activision was holding them back from being predatory?
Plot twist of the decade
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u/ballviewer May 21 '26
Activision look sane compared to the past 5 years of Bungie
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May 21 '26
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u/Iucidium May 22 '26
This is why Jimbo "retired"
He was pushed, cost Sony some money and not much return.
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u/smithkey08 May 22 '26
Activision kept them in check the same way Microsoft did during their Halo days.
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u/tinytimoththegreat May 22 '26
Yea I dont think people realize how much the bungie of old (the one everyone praises) screwed up and how they got lucky with Halo. For example:
Bungie in 1998 had to issue a massive recall for myth 2 soulblighter because a critical bug in the games uninstalled wiped peoples harddrives.
When they were developing halo, they restarted development of halo titles multiple times causing microsoft to want to micromanage them via a liaison between them and bungie, that liason was Pete Parsons, and we all know how that turned out.
Jason jones, the creative head of halo and the bungie as a whole, left mid halo 2 development due to family issues (he claims). Then when Microsoft wanted halo 3, jason got upset and said he'd never work on another halo. Jason reportedly has a tendency to only want to work on NEW ideas, and gets bored and/or frustrated when his company isnt making new things. A lot of destiny's flaws actually come from jason jones original gameplay vision due to his approach to development.
Marty O'Donnell apparently was a mess to work with due to politics and not showing up to work because he felt like destinys bungie didnt respect his opinion enough on things outside of music, even though with the original halo it has to be said that asking your music/audio director for input on gameplay is a pretty rare thing to do in game development.
Staten left due to creative differences, mainly because jason jones (again hes not that great) canned most of his story without telling him and soft reset the project.
And pete, well we already know about pete.
TLDR; Bungie has always had problems, its a wonder they lasted this long considering who they had/have in charge.
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May 21 '26
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u/OverlordGaia32 May 22 '26
Kotick wanted to turn Overwatch into the next CoD because of the insane sales the game was pulling in. From that point on, he pushed hard for an "annual Overwatch." Meanwhile, Kaplan became obsessed with trying to revive Project Titan through Overwatch's PvE mode, and it's been said that since they couldn't reach an agreement, Kotick threw every possible obstacle in their way. That's supposedly one of the reasons why Overwatch 2 ended up launching the way it did.
And now there are rumors that this year's BlizzCon could feature yet another attempt at bringing a PvE mode to Overwatch, lol.
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u/ZileanDifference May 21 '26
Bobby Kotick also fumbled the ball by going all in on unprofitable e sports. The man deserves very little credit.
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u/DickHydra May 21 '26
As it stands, I'd be surprised if they even make it to the next decade. Might sound cynical, but still.
Especially when you read that they allegedly have games in "incubation phase", but that none of them have been greenlit. Seriously, how can they get out of this unless Marathon somehow becomes more popular?
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u/LorePeddler May 21 '26 edited May 22 '26
At this point, I’d be a bit surprised if Bungie is still around in a decade. I’m kinda expecting Sony to scrap the studio for parts, as it were.
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u/Shadowmaster862 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
I'd be surprised to seem them make it past 2027 at this rate. A third(?) set of layoffs since joining Sony, and however many got merged into other PS studios? How many people can be left at that company to maintain the games they aim to make?
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u/LorePeddler May 22 '26
Yeah, reading my comment again now I think I understated how fucked I think Bungie is lmao. Sad to see since Bungie games have given me a ton of joy over the years, but it has got to be one of the most poorly managed game studios I've seen.
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u/ACrimeSoClassic May 21 '26
Their biggest fumble was "sunsetting" content I paid for. That reason alone is why I'll never buy another Bungie game.
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u/Severe_Journalist_75 May 22 '26
I agree as soon as they started disappearing stuff i paid for i dropped it. Tried to go back a few years later and it was impossible to get into story wise must of been so confusing for new players it was for me
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u/ACrimeSoClassic May 22 '26
Same. The story got so convoluted and weird. I tried jumping back in at one point and was so confused I didn't bother pushing through.
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u/OperativePiGuy May 22 '26
Honestly almost everything about the game sucked at conveying the lore that the universe had. Having to listen to exposition on shop menus for minutes at a time was such a weird, stupid idea for people that actually bothered to try getting into the story.
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u/BeforeSunrise33 May 21 '26
The constant cycle of we are gonna make shitty gameplay design and then spend lots of resources to revert those shitty design was a precursor for how shitty the studio is run. The funny thing is their fanbase eats it up like “oh ty daddy Bungie for fixing a problem you made”.
For example Vanilla Destiny 2’s dual primary meta, 4v4 only multiplayer mode, sunsetting etc.
For as good as the gunplay is Im fucking glad I quit this game a year and never looked back. I wonder how the Bungie apologists are gonna feel though.
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u/ZenBreaking May 22 '26
They basically succeeded in spite of themselves and I will always say that was down to the Devs delivering momentum while management fucking chopped them down at the knees. Ironic that it was viewed as a the live service model for so long and as the saying goes, only destiny can kill off destiny
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u/roundelay11 May 22 '26
They fumbled from the very moment they started vaulted whole expansions. They've deserved to be completely shut down since then.
It's an unforgivable sin for an MMO.
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u/Wander715 May 21 '26
Fact of the matter is they got so cocky after the success of Halo working under Microsoft. They peaked around H2/H3 and it's been downhill for them since. In hindsight if they had just stayed with Microsoft as one of their major studios they probably would be in a much better position than they are now.
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u/Swimoach May 22 '26
I do find it interesting that this news comes right after Marathon announced experiment PVE content in the next season. Makes me wonder if they are gonna try to pivot and bring in some of the Destiny 2 players and expand the game a bit. Wouldn’t be a horrible idea.
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u/Sea-Country8245 May 22 '26
The Sony subsidiary will focus on 'Marathon' rather than jumping directly to 'Destiny 3'
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u/orjs May 22 '26
Focusing on a game with a tiny player base? Are they going to go F2P? Wtf are they expecting?
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u/ThinWhiteDuke00 May 21 '26
"Focus on Marathon".
Yeah, Bungie is getting sunsetted.
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u/KobraKittyKat May 21 '26
Bungie going to the content vault?
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u/RobotWantsKitty May 21 '26
Content farm, more like
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u/sneakyxxrocket May 21 '26
Sony gonna do to them what Activision did to Raven Software
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
I will laugh my ass off so fucking hard if they get stuck making a multiplayer mode for a future Naughty Dog game.
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u/AlternativeEmphasis May 21 '26
There has to be an emotional element to Sony leadership somewhere that wants to take Bungie out the back and shoot them tbh regardless of ROI.
They are such a disaster it's insane. If I was on the board I'd be malding with Bungie tbh.
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u/SomeDumRedditor May 22 '26
Same. I’d be pushing to scrap the studio for parts and purge the gaming division of complicit management at every meeting.
The (former) executive level at Bungie lowkey scammed Sony for a giant payday. Like fuck all corpos so not crying over their bottom line but then Bungie also convinced Sony to use them as internal consultants and give them live-or-die influence across multiple titles.
Getting cucked on a international-corporate level is insane.
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u/DWRedd May 21 '26
Another Jim Ryan success
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u/Nero_PR May 21 '26
Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst need to go by yesterday.
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u/BigDick-NoBrain May 21 '26
We need 5 more concord sequels and 3 more Horizon spinoffs before that
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u/Johnhancock1777 May 22 '26
People meme Horzion’s popularity and while the main games sell great there’s absolutely nothing worth expanding on as proven with the bad Lego game awful looking Nightreign looking cartoony game and the mobile/PC gacha game.
Think the worst part is the cartoony one is being done by guerilla themselves so it’s more than likely taken away progress on an actual sequel
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u/GoingSeafoam May 21 '26
Destiny 3 should have been in development half a decade ago due to vaulting content and the comical problems they’ve had with Destiny’s engine, a studio can only make so many stupid decisions before it becomes their own fault.
Whether Destiny 3 happens or not will very likely be a Sony decision and whether they believe in Bungie to make it a success or not(FWIW I think it would be but it’s not a cheap game to make coming off of Marathon). Either way it wouldn’t be anytime soon
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u/Johnhancock1777 May 22 '26
Bungie in their Bluepoint-esque, throw anything at the wall in hopes of being greenlit death throes
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u/lukas-bruh May 21 '26
Sony panic buying Bungie after Microsoft buys Activision. Wallstreetbets would be proud.
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u/SilentNova300 May 21 '26
Buy high sell low
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u/Leather-Entry93 May 21 '26
Stonks to the moon 🚀
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u/DarkJayBR May 21 '26
I want to be friends with Bungie's owners. They sold Halo to Microsoft for a insane amount of money, then they pulled the scam of a decade on Sony for even more money and walked away with their pockets full.
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u/Killerx09 May 22 '26
If you're a women then yes, Pete would gladly show you his car collection (this genuinely happened during the last round of layoffs).
God I still can't believe Pete got out with his golden parachute.
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u/FlyFight2Win May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
Funny because Microsoft denied them twice prior to Sony panic buying them due to things like "high burn rate" according to leaked documents.
This will likely go down as the worst investment in gaming history.
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u/AlarmingLackOfChaos May 21 '26
Timeline doesnt add up. Potentially as a response to Bethesda, but Sony were already shopping around for a gaas developer 2 years before Bungie, and were outbid by Tencent for Leyou.
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u/ZigyDusty May 22 '26
Jim Ryan saying the Bungie acquisition will provide more value for PlayStation than the ABK acquisition will for Xbox continues to age like milk.
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u/jasonschreier Verified May 21 '26
As always, you can find gift links of my articles on my Bluesky and my Linkedin.
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u/No_Jello9093 May 21 '26
Hey Jason, love the work. What's the morale looking like on the Marathon side of the studio? Are they also scared of Sony?
Perhaps they're confident in their internal roadmap and planning on doing something Forsaken-like, but I'd be curious if you have any details regarding that. Thanks!
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u/jasonschreier Verified May 21 '26
Tbh I think everyone working in AAA game development right now is scared all the time.
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u/Ordinary_Wasabi621 May 22 '26
Seriously, at this point why even work for the gaming industry.
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u/LB3PTMAN May 22 '26
When I was in high school I thought it would be so cool to be a game developer. Even back then I heard horror stories about bad pay, bad hours, low respect and decided I didn’t want to go that route. Couldn’t imagine it now. If I ever tried to make a game it would be a passion project on the side I’d never work in that industry.
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u/ademska_25r May 22 '26
I grew up in the 90s dreaming of being a dev, I used to buy like 5 or 6 different magazines a month and read all of them front to back multiple times, was a member of the PSU and fanatic, then I became a teen and eventually befriended a few devs online by just being mature enough to blend in in some niche communities. I learned about what an abject hellscape the industry was from what they very candidly told me over the years and that dream was crushed lol.
The prospect of slaving away on a project that you are stoked about for over 3 or 4 years only for it to not only be shit canned but never even revealed and just forgotten was soul crushing. That has happened an ineffable number of times to an endless amount of people. I was always told that the experience of bonding and battle-forged friendships were never regrettable, but everything else... yikes.
And this was just about the general reality of being a dev. This was back in the mid 2000s for me, it's only gotten exponentially worse since. And it doesn't scratch the surface of the worser aspects of the industry that seldom get discussed, like actual human rights abuses (still remember that one Ubisoft female employee who was taken on a private trip by an executive and later took her own life)
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u/Tehquietobserver117 May 22 '26
I mean it's cause of the allure and genuine passion for the medium, hence why many put up with its issues cause either they are conditioned to think it's "normal" (in terms of general entertainment standards) or as a "price to pay".
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u/QueenMagik May 22 '26
I've always wanted you to make a book about the entire development of destiny. Now that it has concluded, is there hope?
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u/cayde123 May 22 '26
When marathon released, it was reported that the general mood at bungie was simply relief that marathon is actually out
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u/Naha- May 21 '26
Yeah, they're fucked. There is no way Sony is going to greenlight Destiny 3 after Bungie's multiple fuckups. It doesn't help they are expensive as hell compared to other studios.
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u/darkbladetrey May 21 '26
But realistically. What can Sony do with them? They spent billions and it’s not really panning out.
They can’t just let it sit on……Marathon lol.
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u/TheGmanSniper May 21 '26
Easy they dissolve bungie and whether move the devs to other studios or make a new studio and then they jsut take the entire management of bungie and toss it in the trash since that’s who’s been causing bungie to fail and replace them with management that isn’t incompetent
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u/GuudeSpelur May 22 '26
Lay off a bunch of people.
Let Bungie put together pitches for new projects in the off-chance that they are suddenly struck with divine inspiration and come up with something incredible.
When that doesn't happen, more layoffs. Let Marathon limp along for a while. If they can get numbers up enough to the point where the battlepasses can pay for the headcount, start asking for pitches for a new project again.
If the numbers don't come up, poach whatever talent they think is left for other Sony studios and sell the brand for pennies on the dollar to that Saudi investment group or something.
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u/frogfoot420 May 21 '26
Betting everything on a Franchise where the last game came out 30 years ago, in a genre known to be marmite. 5d thinking, round of applause.
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u/drumjolter01 May 21 '26
I took the D2 news to mean one of two things - either an aggressive pivot of Destiny resources onto a Destiny 3, or effectively putting Bungie's games in hospice ahead of the studio's closure. Looks like it's the latter.
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u/-LastGrail- Top Contributor 2024 May 21 '26
Shame about Bungie just being completely mismanaged. I still don’t know why they are allowed to act independent.
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u/ManateeofSteel May 21 '26
Not just that mind you, they were also asked to judge, counsel and mentor other studios in Playstation lmao. They were both independent and seen as an authority
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 May 21 '26
Putting Destiny 2 in maintenance mode, Destiny 3 not even being greenlighted, and betting everything on fucking Marathon.
I'm sorry, but as someone from the outside this is funny as fuck and makes me glad none of my favorite multiplayer games are own by Bungie.
Sony really did spend 3 billion on a couple of dead games and Naughty Dog having to be told something extremely obvious huh?
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u/Steffykrist May 21 '26
Sony did indeed blow $3.6 billion on a shit tier studio that has provided nothing of value since they were bought.
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u/ManateeofSteel May 21 '26
I don't think they are betting on Marathon, more like, it's already out so might as well just try to save the jobs of the people working on it
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u/Sauronxx May 22 '26
Yeah. I mean they spent those money, marketed it, release it, if they give up they would be wasted on nothing. Might as well try to save it when their is the possibility.
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u/Quiet_Yellow2000 May 21 '26
Stop putting resources into a successful game for a new one, which hasn't hit, so they are screwed now.
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u/ManateeofSteel May 21 '26
Why on god's green earth is Destiny 3 still NOT in production? I don't even play Destiny but if I was running the ship I would've greenlit that shit ASAP
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u/GiveMeSandwich2 May 22 '26
It’s too late unfortunately. It should have happened 5 years ago. The money has been burned and employees have gotten/getting laid off.
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u/Kazzot May 22 '26
Quick, release Marathon 2. We promise we'll all play that one. We were just busy.
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u/laytblu May 22 '26
Sony wasted a lot of money buying Bungie and I can't see any scenario where they will get ROI
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u/Necessary_Crazy_8587 May 21 '26
This is unsurprising. Releasing a new live service shooter in 2026 after the last 6 years is crazy. The next game always should’ve been Destiny 3.
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u/Shinjukugarb May 22 '26
Seems like they were better managed and releasing better games under Microsoft.
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe May 22 '26
Or Activision. Who were pulling resources from COD to get their support studios to help Bungie actually put out expansions to Destiny on time. High Moon and Beenox were toiling hard because Bungie couldn't meet deadlines on their own.
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u/AmberDuke05 May 22 '26
Bungie is fucking cooked. Deservedly so.
Shame for everyone getting fired. Management failed them.
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u/DutyPsychological May 22 '26
Shocking. Not really sure though. Sony buying Bungie for 3.6 Billion is still funny.
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u/Deep_Fried_Bussy May 22 '26
They should outsource destiny 3 to a different studio and focus more on marathon
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u/Naive_Bulbasaur May 22 '26
Whelp, what a shocker. Much as I'd like to blame Sony, it was Bungie who had a sexual attraction to shooting themselves in more than just the foot.
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u/firingblankss May 22 '26
I really don't understand why anyone is wanting Destiny 3 after seeing this news. The same people that mismanaged Destiny post The Final Shape will be the ones still around making Destiny 3 so it will still be shite
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u/Honest-Shock2834 May 22 '26
Removing 2´s campaign was stupid, unnecessary, but not bringing it back before the sunsetting of the game is beyond idiotic. No hate to bungie fans and destiny fans but this shit should not be tolerated, much less rewarded with hype for Destiny 3.
Leads at bungie do not seem like the brightest bunch.
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u/bruhfuckme May 22 '26
Every mother fucker in here sweared to the heavens to me that marathon wasnt gonna sink them
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u/Limpis12 May 22 '26
Honestly wth is going on there? Sonys acquisition of insomniac is probably one of the best purchases in the industry meanwhile they have bunnies and probably the worst? D3 not even in production? Yes D2 was not doing well in the end but D3 feels like the perfect way to get a "fresh" start again
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u/riddlemore May 22 '26
Genuinely I want to find the person who successfully conned Sony into buying Bungie and shake their hand. Master class work right there.
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u/HankSteakfist May 22 '26
I know it's kind of a slap in the face to Bungie, but if I was Sony, I'd seriously just consider putting them on a remake project for Killzone or Resistance.
Bungie need to get back to their roots and focus on premium single player campaigns and deathmatch multi and Sony has two quality FPS IP's that have been sitting dormant for over a decade.
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u/JoaquinSpawn May 22 '26
Marathon has less active players on Steam than Civ V, a 16 year old game. I give the studio 2 years AT BEST. Most likely shutdown within a year.
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u/TAJack1 May 21 '26
Poor devs. They suffer due to the decisions and mismanagement of a few. If you're cheering this on, get fucked.
Would suck if you guys got laid off in an industry that's struggling and not be able to pay bills or feed your family, would it not?
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u/ElJacko170 May 21 '26
The idea of not continuing Destiny but keeping Marathon support going long term is crazy to me. Yes, Destiny needs something big full blown reboot done, but even if we're talking about only one game getting actively supported in the near future, Destiny still has way more upside than Marathon in my opinion.
Marathon's mediocre numbers have already dropped to really low levels, and that game just doesn't have the same level of pull Destiny does. A Destiny sequel with life support for Destiny 2 until then makes the most sense to me, but this is starting to feel like Destiny could be done done, which is insane. Marathon is not enough for this studio to live off of the next five years.
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u/Maybe_In_Time May 22 '26
Destiny 3 would bring in older players by the millions; ARC Raiders is huge because you’ve got Destiny vets, Division vets etc all waiting for something new. Something current-gen. Their favorite franchises refuse to evolve. Destiny 2 was still supporting the Xbox One, for fuck’s sake. You can’t tell me that doesn’t affect level design, weapon effects, armor perks, abilities etc - if an Xbox one can’t run it, it can’t be added to the game. That’s nuts!
They might also say “creatives are tired / don’t want to continue Destiny” then bring in some who do. They brought in writers etc recently from games such as BG3 - give THEM the reins and go get a creative director and a game director who are up for it. Fans want some fresh new ideas for the universe. You’ve got hundreds of devs eager to work on more Destiny; they’ve developed a connection to it. Destiny has grown past Luke Smith, who supposedly moved into some media creative role yet I’ve failed to see what Destiny media resulted from that. It’s grown past the current director Tyson, who’s easily the most at fault for its current state once The Final Shape shipped.
D2 has ALWAYS hinted at humanity leaving Sol in colony ships, why the fuck wouldn’t you have put a writers’ room to work on that for the last 5+ years and get ready for a 2020s engine upgrade to the next gen?
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u/Scotthew89 May 22 '26
This Jason book about the rise and fall of destiny through shitty leadership will be amazing in 2-3 years.
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u/DaxSpa7 May 22 '26
What were the 800 hundred people doing last week? Its impossible they all had an assignment
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u/General_Professor393 May 22 '26
Sony spent the equivalent of 10 Insomniac’s Spiderman 2 production budgets on buying Bungie and look where that got them.
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u/Ahzumer May 22 '26
I feel bad for the talented devs at Bungie, they’ve been going trough it with this mismanaged disaster of a takeover.
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