Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Thursday it's laying off a "significant number of employees," according to a memo by CEO Hermen Hulst. The layoffs include "most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members," as well as operations staff that support Bungie.
In the memo to staff then posted on the Sony blog, Hulst wrote, "We have made the decision to reduce Bungie’s workforce, affecting a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members. There are also reductions across SIE teams that support Bungie’s operations. Those impacted at Bungie and within SIE are being informed today."
Bungie's social media accounts confirmed the news, writing, "With great sadness, we are announcing a reduction in force as we reorganize Bungie." The company wrote the changes are "necessary to best position the studio now and for the future."
In May, Bungie announced that it would stop support for Destiny 2. The game received its final update on June 9; it will remain playable, but there will be no more new content. Many fans feared layoffs would follow after the company's announcement, with Bloomberg reporting that layoffs were planned.
Hulst wrote that the decision was made over the past few months.
"Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio’s long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy," Hulst wrote. "We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals."
Hulst did not expand on what those alternative strategies were, nor did he confirm just how many people are impacted in this layoff. Forbes estimated in April that Bungie employed around 800 people, with a rough split between Destiny and Marathon. A representative for Sony Interactive Entertainment referred Aftermath to Hulst's memo when asked for information about the number of staff impacted.
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier said Thursday that Bungie studio lead Justin Truman, who replaced former CEO Pete Parsons in 2025, is stepping down.
On the official Bungie social media accounts, Bungie wrote that leadership recognizes that Destiny 2 "fell short of expectations" in the past few years. Bungie first released Destiny in 2014, and the sequel was released in 2017. Bungie went independent from Activision in 2019, before Destiny 2 became a free-to-play game in 2020. In 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Bungie in a $3.7 billion deal.
— Bungie (@Bungie) June 25, 2026
Destiny and Destiny 2 sustained a dedicated player base for much of of their lifespan, but the leadership has made some questionable decisions. One of the biggest game-impacting ones was the removal of the base game's story and its expansions in 2020; Bungie called the removal of these pieces as content entering the "content vault." The removal of key narrative details meant Destiny and its story were even less accessible to newcomers, and that existing players could no longer access their favorite missions. Destiny 2's first expansion, The Witch Queen, was a hit, but the Lightfall expansion in 2023 was widely considered a disappointment. That same year, Bungie delayed its next expansion, The Final Shape.
Weeks before the delay, Bungie enacted a series of mass layoffs. Bungie cut 100 roles, around 8% of its staff of 1,200 at the time, Bloomberg reported. The studio was "running 45% below projections for the year," according to the report, as the player base declined. In 2024, Bungie laid off 17% of its staff, accounting for 220 roles. Then-CEO Pete Parsons said the layoffs impacted "every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles." At that time, Parsons said Bungie had more than 850 employees left working on Destiny and Marathon.
Thursday's mass layoff has seemingly hit all parts of Destiny 2's development: art, gameplay design, analytics, narrative, visual effects, quality assurance, and more. The easier, and equally devastating, question to answer may be which parts of the team aren't impacted. It's a hard end to a project that hundreds of developers have spent more than a decade working on.
Bungie wrote on social media the studio's future projects are "in early incubation," and it expects to say more in the future. The studio had been reported to be working on several different incubation projects over the past few years, one of which is code-named Gummy Bears. It's said to be a MOBA and Super Smash Bros. hybrid; it's unclear if it's still in development after the game was moved from Bungie to a new studio under the PlayStation banner. Bungie was also previously working on a game codenamed Payback, a Destiny offshoot. Bloomberg reported that game was cancelled, months before the 2024 mass layoff, so staff could focus on Marathon. Another mystery game, codenamed Matter, was canceled in 2020; a second, similar project was canceled in 2022, according to IGN.
This story is developing and will be updated.
Nathan Grayson
