Bungie is set to lay off 220 individuals from their staff, as confirmed by Pete Parsons via a blog post earlier today. The company had over 1000 employees previously and are currently cutting that number to 850.
220 individuals are being laid off while 155 are being transferred to Sony Entertainment Interactive, and 75 are being moved to a new studio, as confirmed by Jason Schrier.
This new studio, will be responsible for working with PlayStation Studios and forming yet another studio within them and will be tasked with bringing out a new game that has been in incubation for a while.
In the post, Parsons mentioned that the company was “overly ambitions”, but did everything that they could to avoid today’s outcome.
While the company promises to be more transparent with their employees, this is the second round of layoffs that the company is conducting within the span of a year, and has left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.
While Bungie cited Lightfall and the economic slowdown as a reason for the layoffs last year, it’s rather surprising to see a similar thing happen this year as well within two months of Destiny 2: The Final Shape’s release, despite it being a huge success.
Following the layoffs last year, Parsons spoke to the players via a message on the Bungie website where he said, “We know we have lost a lot of your trust. Destiny needs to surprise and delight. We haven’t done this enough and that’s going to change.”
While the company did deliver with The Final Shape, these rounds of layoffs definitely come as a surprise to the Destiny 2 community as a whole.
Despite the layoffs, the company has promised to remain committed to Destiny 2 and Marathon in the coming days, but the move has already sparked outrage in the community.
