Sony Cuts Most of the Destiny Team at Bungie, Weeks After the Game Ended

Update, June 26: A day after the cuts, Bungie's studio head is out, a replacement has been reported, and a layoff filing puts a hard number on the damage. New reporting is in the update section below.

Sony confirmed Thursday that it has cut a large part of Bungie, including most of the team that made Destiny. The word came in an internal email from Hermen Hulst, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment's Studio Business Group, which Sony also posted in full on its corporate blog.

"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," Hulst wrote. He added that there are "also reductions across SIE teams that support Bungie's operations," and that everyone affected was being told the same day.

Sony did not give a headcount. Paul Tassi, who has covered Bungie and Destiny for years, reported that "there are over 400 people in Bungie's current layoff call," which would put the cut near half the studio. Treat that as a reporter's number rather than Sony's until the company confirms one.

How Bungie got here

Hulst framed the layoffs as a portfolio call. Over the past several months, he wrote, Sony and Bungie leadership reviewed "the studio's long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy," and "explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio's resources with its current priorities and long-term goals."

The timing tracks with the last month. Destiny 2 shipped its final live-service content update, Monument of Triumph, on June 9, closing out a run that began in 2017 and a series that goes back to the original Destiny in 2014. Bungie announced the wind-down in May. Fans answered with a petition and a coordinated log-in day pushing for a Destiny 3. It did not move Sony.

Sony bought Bungie in 2022 for $3.6 billion, betting that the studio's live-service experience would help PlayStation build its own online games. That bet has not landed the way Sony wanted. A former Bungie developer said earlier this year that without the deal the studio would have been "very close to shutting its doors," describing the acquisition as effectively an emergency move. Former community manager Liana Ruppert said publicly that "a lot of money didn't go into Destiny," pointing at leadership decisions for the game's funding troubles. Those are ex-staff accounts, not Sony's, and Bungie has not addressed them point by point.

What happens to Marathon

Marathon, Bungie's extraction shooter, survives the round, though "some Marathon team members" were let go. Hulst said the game "remains an important part of our portfolio" and that Sony will keep backing the team "as they build on the strong foundation established in Season 1 and 2, and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects." Marathon has a small, committed player base and has not been the hit Sony wanted when it revived the name.

Update: the studio head is gone, and the filing names roles

The cuts did not stop at the rank and file. Hours before Sony's letter went public, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported that studio head Justin Truman is leaving too.

Bungie studio head Justin Truman, who succeeded Pete Parsons last year, is stepping down, people familiar with the situation tell Bloomberg News.

Forbes' Paul Tassi reported the same departure. Truman ran Bungie for less than a year, taking over from Pete Parsons last August. Neither Sony nor Bungie has said whether he resigned or was pushed, and Truman has not commented.

Tassi also named a successor: Poria Torkan, Bungie's former VP of Operations and a studio staffer for more than a decade, is now running things. Bungie has not announced that itself, so it sits as a reporter's account for now.

Then the paperwork arrived. A WARN filing in Washington state, the notice employers owe before mass layoffs, lists "approx. 292 affected employees" at Bungie's Bellevue building, with separations effective July 9. That is the documented floor for one site. Tassi's "north of 400" covers the wider call, and both can hold if the filing only counts Bellevue. The filing does not print names, but the affected roles include "Chief Vision Officer," the title co-founder Jason Jones has carried for years. Jones helped start Bungie in 1991 and shaped Marathon, Halo, and Destiny. A role on a filing is not proof a person is gone, but it tells you how high the cuts reached. The Game Post flagged the listing.

Put together, this is not a trim. Sony is rebuilding what is left of Bungie around Marathon and an unannounced project, with new leadership and a long list of veterans heading for the door.

The part that matters

Layoffs land on people, not logos. Hulst's letter spends its closing lines on the workers. "Our immediate priority is supporting affected employees through this transition," he wrote, citing transition support and an effort to place people elsewhere at Sony. "I know today's news is deeply difficult not only for those leaving, but for those colleagues and friends that remain."

For a decade, Destiny was one of the few shooters that could hold a console-sized audience year after year. The artists, engineers, designers, and community staff who built and ran it are now job hunting in an industry that has been shedding work for two straight years. If you have open roles, this is a good week to post them.