After Bungie’s recent layoffs, the development team has put up a blog post, but rather than it being the usual update, this one is more of a sombre note that half acknowledges the job-cutting elephant in the room while making a commitment to “exceed expectations” making Destiny 2′ The Final Shape expansion their best work yet.
The post started by calling the last couple of days “one of the most difficult weeks in our studio’s history,” which was non-arguably worse for those who actually lost their jobs. The post goes on to say the feedback for the Lightfall expansion and the most recent seasons reiterates the current state of the live service game. The Bungie development team takes it on the chin and admits to players – “We know we have lost a lot of your trust,” and is striving to improve the current state of The Final Shape, a conclusion to 10 years of the franchise’s storytelling which was delayed from its previous internal February 2024 release window to June 2024.
“The path forward is clear: We need to make The Final Shape an unforgettable Destiny experience. We want to build something that will be regarded alongside the best games we’ve ever made – a fitting culmination that honours the journey we’ve been on together for the past ten years. Forsaken, The Witch Queen, and The Taken King – these are the standard bearers we aim to live up to,” Bungie’s Destiny 2 development team said in a statement.
“We are intensely focused on exceeding your expectations for The Final Shape. Destiny 2 has more than 650 dedicated teammates pouring all their energy and expertise into delivering this epic moment and its subsequent Episodes… beginning with our next Season in late November. Afterwards, we’ll begin to unpack our team’s bigger, bolder, and brighter vision for The Final Shape, as well as the bridge we plan to build to take us all out of this Darkness and into the Light.”
Following the initial layoff report, it was confirmed that 100 employees were laid off this past week, eight percent of the studio’s 1,200-employed team. PlayStation did not reportedly conduct the layoffs, but rather Bungie took on that responsibility, which was done due to Destiny 2 underperforming and the preorder sales of The Final Shape expansion being lower than expected, according to IGN.
For those that remained, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told his employees that “the right people” stayed on the Destiny 2 team in a verbal gut punch towards the studio’s former community, engineering, recruitment, legal, audio, QA, IT and creative members.
