This morning, we share some of the most challenging changes our studio has ever faced. Due to rising development costs, industry shifts, and enduring economic conditions, substantial changes to our cost structure are necessary. Our focus will now be entirely on Destiny and Marathon.
Starting today, 220 roles will be eliminated, representing about 17% of our workforce. These actions impact all company levels, including many executive and senior leadership positions.
This is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues who have all contributed to Bungie. Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. We will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus, and health coverage.
I understand this is hard news, especially following the success of The Final Shape. However, after navigating the broader economic realities over the past year and exhausting all other mitigation options, this decision has become necessary to refocus our studio with more realistic goals and viable financials.
We are committing to two major changes to support our focus, leverage Sony’s strengths, and create new opportunities for Bungie talent.
Deepening Integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment
We are working to integrate 155 roles, roughly 12% of our workforce, into Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise be affected by the reduction in force.
Spinning Out a New Studio
We are collaborating with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects into a new studio within PlayStation Studios. This project is an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe and will continue its promising development.
Understanding How We Got Here
For over five years, our goal has been to ship games in three enduring, global franchises. To achieve this, we set up several incubation projects, each led by senior development leaders from our existing teams. However, this model stretched our talent too thin and forced our support structures to scale beyond what we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development: Destiny and Marathon.
In 2023, our rapid expansion collided with a broad economic slowdown, a downturn in the games industry, a quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to meet player expectations. Our financial safety margins were exceeded, and we began running in the red.
Despite exhaustive efforts by our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were insufficient. Therefore, we must say goodbye to incredible talent, colleagues, and friends today.
Navigating the Changes Ahead
This will be a challenging time at Bungie. We will help our team navigate these changes in the weeks and months ahead. This will be a hard week, and our team will need time to process, ask questions, and absorb this news. We will host team meetings, town halls, breakout sessions, and private individual sessions to ensure open and transparent communication.
Bungie’s Future
Bungie will continue to make great games. With over 850 team members, we will continue building amazing experiences that exceed our players’ expectations.
While there will be a time to discuss our future goals and projects, today our focus is on supporting our people.