Bungie will lay off 220 developers, representing 17% of its total workforce.
Bungie boss Pete Parsons says the cuts are necessary “to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts fully on Destiny and Marathon.”
“This morning, I want to share with you all some of the most difficult changes we've had to make as a studio,” Parsons wrote in a statement posted on the studios' official website.
“Due to rising development costs, industry changes and continuing economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon.”
“These actions will impact all levels of the company, including most of our executive and senior leadership positions,” Parsons added.
“Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of whom have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie. Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. We will offer everyone affected by this job reduction a generous exit package, including severance pay, bonuses, and medical coverage,” the statement continued.
“I realize this is all bad news, especially after the success we've had with The Final Shape. But as we've faced the broader economic realities over the past year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable finances.”
Parsons added that starting today, 155 additional positions will move to Sony Interactive Entertainment (or about 12% of its staff) to “deepen (Bungie's) integration (with Sony).”
Another 75 people have joined to work “with PlayStation Studios management to spin off one of our incubation projects (an action game set in a new sci-fi universe) and form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development.”
“SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, which together allowed us to salvage a wealth of talent that would otherwise have been impacted by downsizing,” Parsons said.
In addition to the 100 employees who were laid off last November, that means Bungie's workforce has fallen from 1,300 to around 850.
Parsons then took the time to speak candidly about how Bungie “got here.”
“For over five years, our goal has been to launch games across three global, enduring franchises. To realize that ambition, we launched several incubation projects, each staffed by senior development leaders from our existing teams. We ultimately realized that this model was asking too much of our talent, too quickly. It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a level larger than we could realistically support, given our two main products in development: Destiny and Marathon,” he explained.
“Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion was met head-on by a broad economic downturn, a sharp decline in the gaming industry, our lack of quality with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give The Final Shape and Marathon the time necessary to ensure both projects delivered the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began to slide into the red.”
As a result, Parsons said Bungie had to “change course and speed,” and while the team “did everything we could to avoid today's outcome,” even with “exhaustive efforts” by our leadership and product teams to address our financial challenges, “those steps were simply not enough.”
“So today we must say goodbye to incredible talents, colleagues and friends.
This will be a challenging time for Bungie, and we'll need to help our team navigate these changes over the coming weeks and months. It's going to be a difficult week, and we know our team will need time to process, ask questions, and absorb this news.
“Today and over the coming weeks we will be hosting team meetings and town halls, team building sessions and private one-on-one sessions to ensure we keep our communication open and transparent.
“There will be a time to talk about our goals and projects, but today is not that day. Today, our focus is on supporting our people.”