Destiny devs Bungie are the latest big video game studio to be hit by layoffs
Following reported job losses at fellow Sony-owned studios earlier this month
Destiny 2 and Marathon studio Bungie are the next video game giant to be caught up in 2023’s brutal industry-wide wave of layoffs, as an undisclosed number of job cuts hit the veteran developer today.
Bloomberg confirmed that Bungie CEO Pete Parsons sent a company-wide email to inform staff of a meeting this morning, accompanying news of the layoffs.
While the full extent of the cuts is currently unknown, those laid off include Destiny 2 community manager and accessibility co-lead Liana Ruppert, associate franchise editor Jason Guisao, social media lead Griffin Bennett, and event manager Matthew Bianchi, who took to social media to confirm they had been let go from the studio.
“I'm processing,I'm so heartbroken. I don't know what to do from here... this was my home. I feel so lost,” Ruppert wrote on Twitter/X.
“That was a hell of a run folks… Today I was let go from Bungie,” Bianchi confirmed. “5 years and 346 days of D2, Marathon and some of the absolute best co-workers in Gaming.”
“I was born and raised in Bellevue. Bungie was my "home team" studio. It was honor to work there. This one stings,” Bennett said. “Thank you to everyone at Bungie who helped make my last 5+ years the best ever.”
The Bungie layoffs follow a reported “wave of layoffs” at other PlayStation studios earlier this month. Sony acquired Bungie last year for north of $3.5 billion.
According to Bloomberg, the staff cuts are partially due to game delays, with Bungie’s The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2 reportedly pushed back from next February to June 2024, and the multiplayer reboot of the studio’s nineties FPS debut Marathon apparently sliding back to a 2025 launch.
The Bungie cuts continue a constant stream of cuts across the video game industry during 2023, ranging from hundreds of staff cuts at Fortnite maker Epic and developers caught up in thousands of Microsoft layoffs at the start of the year, through redundancies at BioWare and various Embracer Group studios - including the closure of Saints Row creators Volition - over the summer, to recent planned job losses at Elite Dangerous studio Frontier, Total War maker Creative Assembly, and Cyberpunk and Witcher devs CD Projekt Red.