What’s next for Bungie? Rumored layoffs and end of ‘Destiny 2’ updates raise questions about studio’s future – GeekWire
Thursday suddenly turned out to be a big news day for fans of Bellevue, the developer of the Wash-based video game. Bungie, which has announced that it plans to stop development of its popular online shooter. Destiny 2.
Eight hours after Bungie’s announcement, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier released a piece saying Bungie is planning “a large number of layoffs” as well. Destiny 2 brought to an end.
Bungie posted on its official blog Thursday morning that it will release its final content update Destiny 2 on June 9, with Bungie’s plans to “make sure that Destiny 2 remains playable” after that.
In a blog post, Bungie said it was clear that The future the franchise needs to go beyond Destiny 2especially after the 2024 extension Final Status. It also noted that Bungie plans to turn to a “fresh start.”
According to Schreier’s piece, however, Bungie allegedly has no firm plans to move on to its next big project, other than shifting more resources to support its latest releases. Marathon. While Marathon received a warmer-than-expected reception upon its release in March, Schreier’s piece notes Marathon still not meeting Sony’s sales expectations.
All of this comes after recent cost-cutting measures by Bungie’s parent company Sony, such as shutting down its subsidiary Bluepoint Games in March. As a result, there is strong speculation online that Bungie itself could be at risk of closure, or at least significant restructuring.
Bungie, founded in 1991, was originally known as the creator of Hello franchise, which Microsoft developed before splitting off in 2007 to become independent. The studio launched the original The future in 2014.
Destiny 2first released in 2017, it is a massively multiplayer online shooter set in the 28th century. Players take on the role of Guardians, powerful fighters who want to protect what’s left of humanity from hostile alien forces that have invaded Earth’s solar system. Furthermore, the Guardians form one side, and the aliens the other, of the cosmic proxy war between the forces of Light and Darkness. (Note: I am here surprisingly to simplify the story of the decade’s sci-fi epic.)
At its height, millions of people played Destiny 2 every day. The elevator pitch of The future as the series has traditionally been its unique combination of MMO mechanics and a team-based first-person shooter. Players can team up or go solo to fight against computer-controlled aliens or compete against each other, all in search of improved weapons and armor to take on bigger challenges.
It was one piece Diabloone half Hello, in a model of the type that fans of the game often refer to as a “gangster shooter.” The future did not invent the format, but is often credited with popularizing it, along with other high-profile games like it The Borderlands.
When Destiny 2 was originally released, published by Activision Blizzard. Bungie then broke ties with Activision Blizzard in early 2019 and chose to publish Destiny 2 itself under the free-to-play model, which was unprecedented for a game of its size D2.
Apart from Destiny 2The success that followed, Bungie remained independent until 2022, when it was bought by Sony for $3.6 billion. This was the first of many moves by Sony to adapt its creative output from its award-winning single-player games (ie. The Last of Us, God of War) for “games as a service” that is constantly updated, a business plan that also saw the acquisition of Bellevue, Wash.-based Firewalk Studio. and the sudden cancellation of its game. Concord.
In 2024, Bungie was released Final Statusa full eighth expansion of Destiny 2 and the conclusion of the story arc of the series as a whole. However, Final Status and seems to have worked indirectly Destiny 2the swan song.
While Bungie tries to keep up D2A story with more extensions like 2025 Edge of the Futureindependent people trackers like SteamDB suggest that D2Overall player numbers have declined since then Final Statuswas introduced.
D2 it’s still one of the top 20 online games on the current market, at least as far as can be determined outside of Bungie itself, but fans have been complaining ever since. Final Status about constraints, emphasis on repetitive “grinding”, and aggressive new monetization policies.
