Bungie lays off 100 people and postpones Marathon and Destiny 2 expansion

Bungie, Sony’s first-party studio, carried out a round of layoffs this week. Furthermore, the Final Shape expansion of Destiny 2 and the game Marathon have been postponed.

The information was released this Monday (30) by journalist Jason Schreier, from Bloomberg. According to him, an email sent by the company’s CEO, Pete Parsons, warned that employees would “hear some news”.

In the statement, the executive also informed employees that a meeting would be scheduled at the end of the day “to discuss today’s events”.

NEW: Bungie laid off an undisclosed number of staff today, part of ongoing job cuts across PlayStation. The company recently delayed the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape to June 2024 and the new game Marathon to 2025, sources tell Bloomberg https://t.co/UiLwy28VyG pic.twitter.com/aN2BgOROj8

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) October 30, 2023

These Bungie shutdowns are yet another in a period of just one month. At the end of September, Epic Games laid off around 900 people (16% of its workforce).

Meanwhile, at the beginning of October, Naughty Dog, from The Last of Uslaid off around 25 developers from different areas.

Bungie has not yet officially commented on the matter and for now the exact number of people fired is unknown.

Postponements of the expansion of Destiny 2 e Marathon

According to Jason Schreier, in addition to the layoffs, Bungie managers internally reported the postponement of two important projects. The first of these is the expansion The Final Shape (A Forma Final, in Brazil), from the game Destiny 2. Previously scheduled to arrive on February 27, 2024, the content should only arrive in June of next year.

Now on sale in online stores, To Final Form includes the story campaign, three new supers, a new destination, new weapons and armor to collect, and the first episode of content.

What apparently also suffered from the layoffs was the Marathon. It is a famous FPS from the 90s that will get a reboot for PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

According to Schreier, the game will only arrive on consoles and computers in 2025.

[Atualização – 31/10/2023, às 17h30]: In a new article on the subject, the reporter from Bloomberg Jason Schreier revealed that the layoffs reached 8% of Bungie’s workforce. According to him, around 100 people were disconnected.

During an internal meeting, the teams were reportedly warned that the company’s revenue was 45% below forecast. And although the workers were encouraged to improve results, the dismissal ended up coming as a “surprise”, according to Schreier.