Last week, Bungie made a half surprising, half the writing was on the wall decision to end active development on Destiny 2. The long running live service shooter’s final update has been set for June, with responses to the news generally oscillating between genuine upset and baffled disappointment. Worse still, a report suggested that the studio is facing “significant” layoffs as a result of this choice. Except the choice didn’t come last week, but earlier in the year, a choice that another report now claims that many at Bungie weren’t privy to until it was made public.
According to Forbes, despite management making the call to cease developing new major updates and expansions earlier in the year, devs at the studio have continued to work on them. The report claims that a majority of Bungie had no idea about support for Destiny 2 being dropped, even up to the moment the studio announced it last week. Apparently some teams were aware, some of whom are working on that final update, and some who had already been moved over to work on Marathon. Devs who were aware of the decision apparently “begged” leadership to tell more people, leaving those who knew feeling incredibly isolated.
Sony’s focus is now on providing Marathon with more resources, with at least some number of remaining Destiny staff expected to move over to work on the extraction shooter. Sony are also still giving the game time to find itself and grow an audience, with no immediate expectation to turn it into the new Destiny.
It’s generally believed that Marathon hasn’t met launch expectations, leaving a lot of questions around the fate of Bungie. Currently no other projects have been greenlit, including a long speculated Destiny 3 that is now unlikely to ever pass, meaning it essentially has to do well for the sake of Bungie’s future. Fingers crossed for all the devs affected by these changes.
