Bungie is executing its second major round of layoffs in under a year, with a Washington State WARN notice confirming at least 292 Bellevue-based employees face termination effective July 9 – cuts that reporting indicates gut the Destiny 2 development team, hit portions of the Marathon team, eliminate the studio’s entire cinematic department, and arrive less than three years after Sony paid $3.6 billion to acquire the studio, as reported by Geoff Keighley.
Here’s the context: Sony closed its Bungie acquisition in mid-2022, billing it as the foundation of PlayStation‘s live-service ambitions. That thesis started cracking almost immediately – Destiny 2 repeatedly missed internal revenue targets through 2023 and 2024, triggering leadership churn that included the exit of CEO Pete Parsons and a restructuring under studio head Justin Truman. On July 31, 2024, Bungie cut roughly 17% of its workforce – approximately 220 roles – reducing headcount to around 850 employees and framing the move as a necessary refocus on Destiny 2 and Marathon, as we covered in our piece on Bungie’s decision to shelve Destiny 3 and restructure around its live franchises. The current cuts make that refocus look like it did not hold.
The WARN notice covers only Washington-based staff, so the 292 figure is a floor, not a ceiling; total global headcount reductions may run higher. Alongside the cuts, studio head Justin Truman is stepping down, with former VP of Operations and ex-Guerrilla Games producer Poria Torkan moving into the leadership role. PlayStation Studios chief Hermen Hulst told staff that the reductions also affect Sony Interactive Entertainment employees whose roles were dedicated to supporting Bungie, framing the move as an effort to “align the studio’s resources with its immediate objectives and future aspirations.” Sony has indicated it intends to support Bungie‘s shooters “through at least 2026,” and is treating Marathon as a core strategic priority despite the franchise’s slow market traction heading into launch.
The community response has been exactly what you’d expect. Destiny and Marathon forums are cycling through Hulst’s memo line by line, and as we covered in our breakdown of Destiny 2 fans review-bombing Marathon on Steam, the crossover between these two player bases is already a combustible mix – players are skeptical that a slimmed-down Marathon team can deliver a competitive extraction shooter while the Destiny 2 live-ops pipeline loses most of the people who ran it.
Honestly, Hulst‘s language about aligning resources with “immediate objectives and future aspirations” is doing a lot of work to obscure what is actually happening: Sony‘s $3.6 billion bet on live-service infrastructure is being written down in real time, and the write-down looks like bodies. Cutting the entire cinematic department is not a efficiency trim – it is a signal about what kind of game Bungie is now being asked to make and how much creative ambition the remaining budget can support. The framing of Marathon as a “core strategic priority” after losing staff across development, engineering, and design should be read as corporate commitment language, not a production guarantee. Sony needs Marathon to work because it has nothing else in the live-service pipeline to justify what it paid, which means the pressure on a reduced team is higher than it has ever been. Meanwhile, Destiny 2 players watching their support team disappear while Sony promises the franchise will survive “through at least 2026” should note what that phrasing does not say: anything about what happens after. As we’ve tracked in our coverage of Destiny 2’s support window and what Bungie is calling a new beginning, the gap between corporate reassurance and franchise reality at Bungie has been widening for two years.
What remains unclear is the full global headcount impact beyond the 292 confirmed by the Washington WARN filing, which specific Marathon milestones remain intact after the cuts, and whether any of Bungie‘s previously announced incubation projects survive under Torkan‘s restructured leadership. The Destiny 2 live-ops calendar beyond 2026 is also unaddressed – Sony has not committed to anything past that window. What to watch: Bungie‘s first official communication under Torkan about the Marathon development timeline and any revision to the Destiny 2 content roadmap, both of which will indicate whether the studio retained enough capability to deliver on what Sony is still publicly promising.
Do you think a restructured Bungie with a reduced team can actually ship Marathon as a competitive live-service title – or does losing this much institutional knowledge make that close to impossible? And does Sony‘s handling of the Bungie acquisition change how you read PlayStation‘s broader live-service strategy going forward? Sound off in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more Bungie and PlayStation coverage.
