It became known that Bungie laid off almost 300 people, including veterans who had worked at the studio for more than 10 years

And this is only in the main office.

Bungie studio experienced the largest wave of layoffs in recent years. As it became known from official documents, 292 employees working in the company's office in Bellevue (Washington state) were laid off. This figure does not include employees outside the state, and the official date for the termination of employment contracts is July 9.

Earlier, Sony only reported "significant" layoffs, without disclosing their scale. Hermen Hulst, head of the Studio Business Group at Sony Interactive Entertainment, stated that the decision was "difficult and painful", but necessary to align Bungie's resources with current priorities and long-term strategy. According to him, the layoffs affected most of the Destiny team and some Marathon developers.

This is the third wave of layoffs at Bungie in the last three years. According to local media, in 2023, about a thousand people worked at the studio, but after several stages of layoffs, the staff size significantly decreased. From October 2023 to July 2024 alone, about 320 employees left the company, and the current wave of layoffs has already been called a "bloodbath" by the American press.

According to the published documents, the layoffs affected almost all departments of the studio. Artists, technical animators, sound engineers, engineers, producers, system designers, as well as employees of Sony's service teams that provided Bungie's internal infrastructure, lost their jobs.

After the announcement of the layoffs, many former employees confirmed on social media that they had been laid off. Among them were studio veterans who had worked for more than ten years. At the same time, reports of management reshuffles appeared: according to Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, Bungie head Justin Truman left his post, and, according to Forbes, the studio's management was temporarily transferred to former Vice President of Operations Porria Torkan.

Additional attention was drawn to the position of Chief Vision Officer, mentioned in the documents. There were suggestions online that it was about Bungie co-founder and creator of Halo and Destiny, Jason Jones. His departure has not yet been officially confirmed, but if the information turns out to be true, it will mark a symbolic end to an entire era in the studio's history.

Bungie's financial problems have been ongoing for several years. According to media reports, before Sony's acquisition for $3.6 billion in 2022, the company was on the verge of closure. Sony also recently reported a loss of $765 million related to Bungie's unsatisfactory financial performance.

Sources claim that the studio's deteriorating situation began after the poor performance of the latest Destiny 2 expansions. The possibility of a large-scale game reboot called Destiny Infinity, as well as the development of Destiny 3, was discussed within the company, but both ideas were abandoned due to excessively high costs and risks. At the same time, significant resources were directed to support the Marathon shooter, whose budget, according to media reports, exceeded $250 million, but the project also did not meet expectations for sales and player activity.