‘Nothing Adds Up’ With Bungie’s Budgets As Pressure Mounts On Destiny 2’s The Final Shape

In the wake of significant Marathon news revealed by both an IGN article and a tweet from the game’s new director trying to get ahead of that IGN article, there is additional news about the state of Bungie and Destiny 2 as a whole, and as it has the last few times we’ve gotten reports like this, things are sounding especially bleak.

The article by Rebekah Valentine should be read in full here. The most important, worrisome bits are below, breaking news to the already on-edge community. And already on-edge workers at Bungie.

• There are fears that there will be further layoffs past the 100+ cuts that already happened last fall in the wake of The Final Shape.
• Someone with “knowledge of budgets at Bungie” says that “nothing adds up” and there is an immense amount of pressure on The Final Shape to deliver and fill the gap to Marathon, and then of course, Marathon itself needs to be a hit. Nothing is mentioned about the longer term plan for Destiny past the episodes already announced. I’ll note that it is pretty unusual for someone this high up with that much knowledge of Bungie’s financials to talk for an article like this.
• Bungie has had struggles with Matter, a previously conceived incubation game that was cancelled in 2020, then revived, then cancelled again in 2022. They are still making a game codenamed “Gummy Bears,” but that’s on pause due to everything happening at the company.
• Bungie’s much-derided leadership is reportedly likely going to leave in the summer of 2026 once Sony’s final payouts from the acquisition come in. It’s unclear whether this may be the moment that Sony takes over to run the company as previously rumored. The current bosses allegedly want to get Marathon out the door and leave it to someone else to sustain it from there. This aligns with a long-running pattern of poor behavior from Bungie bosses who have frequently been the target of ire from players, Bungie devs and even Sony, who is displeased with how things have been going.

As someone in the middle of all this as a longtime player and Destiny 2 reporter, it is difficult to imagine a happy ending here, at least in the short term. The current state of the game is not set up to make The Final Shape some sort of huge blockbuster success that is going to save everything and turn things around, even if it is good. Then, given that it is a “concluding chapter” for the Light and Darkness saga, there will likely be huge player drop-off after that as Destiny moves into disconnected Episodes.

Then, from the June Final Shape release to Marathon coming out in some unspecified time in 2025, that’s a lengthy period, plus there are no guarantees Marathon is a hit in a competitive market. News also made in this article that it may be moving to a hero shooter model has been poorly received.

Long-term, if Bungie leadership leaves and better leadership, within the company or through Sony, takes over, things could improve. But it’s going to be a rough 1-2 years almost for sure, given where things are now, and where they look to be going.

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