Like most recent layoffs, the restructuring has been blamed on the current economic downturn; 12% of employees will be integrated into Sony Interactive to spare additional talent from the axe.
Holy budget cuts, Bungie! The Sony-owned game studio known for its Halo and Destiny franchises is set to cut 17% of its workforce, or approximately 220 positions. Another 12% will be integrated into Sony Interactive to spare additional talent from the axe.
“These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles,” Bungie CEO Pete Parsons wrote to staff.
Like most recent layoffs, the restructuring has been blamed on the currently economic downturn. A shift towards less, more impactful, projects has begun.
“Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring 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,” he wrote.
Bungie opened their doors in the early 1990s, cutting their teeth with popular titles such as Marathon and Myth. The studio gained international notoriety with the first installment of their Halo franchise in 1991 and was then acquired by Microsoft. In 2007, Bungie broke away from Microsoft and developed the Destiny franchise before being acquired by Sony in 2022.
“This will be a challenging time at Bungie, and we’ll need to help our team navigate these changes in the weeks and months ahead,” Parsons concluded. “This will be a hard week, and we know that our team will need time to process, to ask questions, and to absorb this news.”
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