PlayStation is dealing with more job cuts as the original developer of Halo and Destiny, Bungie, reportedly has laid off an “undisclosed” amount of its staff today, according to Bloomberg’s sources. It doesn’t end there, as the studio’s upcoming Destiny 2 expansion, The FInal Shape and Marathon, has been delayed.
While we’re a little light on details, we do know that the layoffs at least affected the developer’s communication department, with the now-former social media lead and two community managers publicly announcing they had been laid off. Forbes’ Paul Tassi expands on this by reporting that the employee cuts in question are mostly focused on publishing and possibly engineering as well.
In the same story, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier also revealed that Bungie’s Destiny 2 ending saga expansion, The Final Shape, has been delayed from February 2024 to June 2024, a four-month delay. As for the studio’s upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon has been delayed to 2025, according to an anonymous source.
The loss in talent comes almost 21 months after Sony acquired the developer for $3.6 billion USD in January 2022, which was finalized in July, including $1.2 billion in keeping its staff. Unlike other past studio acquisitions, Bungie is not part of the PlayStation Studios umbrella but is separate but still part of Sony Interactive Entertainment while still continuing to be a multi-platform studio.
Even without being directly part of PlayStation’s 1st party studios, the effects of PlayStation’s layoffs is still felt, with similar job cuts facing Naughty Dog, Visual Arts, and Media Molecule, alongside a full studio closure of Pixelopus in May. Like always, we do hope those Bungie employee affected by today’s news land on their feet.
