Destiny 2 developer Bungie, which was acquired by PlayStation last year for $3.6 billion, is the latest game maker to be hit with layoffs in 2023. Various former Bungie employees announced on Twitter today they had been laid off, and Bloomberg has confirmed with its sources that an undisclosed number of staff were laid off today.
Bloomberg reports that Bungie CEO Pete Parsons told staffers they’d be “hearing some news today” and that following it, there would be a team meeting later today to “discuss today’s events.”
As for why employees were laid off, that remains unclear, especially as the company is set to release a massive Destiny 2 expansion – The Final Shape – that’s set to end the decade-long saga that began in the first Destiny game. Bloomberg states that its sources say The Final Shape has been delayed internally to June 2024, months after its previously announced February 27, 2024 release date.
Game Informer has reached out to PlayStation and will update this story if it learns more.
In January of 2022, Sony announced it was acquiring Bungie for $3.6 billion; it completed the purchase in July of 2022. These layoffs come less than two years after the purchase.
These Bungie layoffs join an unfortunately ever-growing list of layoffs affecting the studios behind games released in 2023, which by all accounts, is one of the best years in gaming in terms of releases. In January, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees amidst its ongoing $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it completed earlier this month.
In August, Striking Distance Studios, the team behind last year’s The Callisto Protocol, laid off more than 30 employees, and that same month, Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare laid off 50 employees, including long-time studio veterans. The following month, in September, Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios laid off roughly 45% of its staff.
Just this month, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog has laid off at least 25 employees, and Telltale Games has gone through layoffs as well, although an actual number of laid-off employees has not yet been revealed. And last week, Dreams developer Media Molecule laid off 20 employees.
The hearts of the Game Informer staff are with everyone affected by these layoffs and those still at the studio.
[Source: Bloomberg]