It’s the end of the road for Bungie’s live service shooter Destiny 2, which still feels insane to type after it’s been going strong (and hanging on) since 2017. While there won’t be any new content updates after June 9th, there was some hope when the developer said it was focusing on “incubating its next games.”
Unfortunately, any hopes for Destiny 3 might be shelved for the time being. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier spoke to “people familiar with the studio’s plans” who claimed that the sequel isn’t planned for immediate production. Furthermore, it’s planning to lay off a “significant number” of employees. How many exactly remains unknown.
Right now, pitching new titles (including new entries in the Destiny franchise) is underway, but nothing has been greenlit. Schreier noted that Bungie is one of the “more expensive studios to operate,” both due to its Seattle location and its experienced staff. While you may think Sony would try to preserve as many as possible, it likely mandated the layoffs to counteract the studio’s hefty impairment losses.
And if it wasn’t obvious already, especially after the delay to Destiny 2’s Shadow and Order Update (which has since been renamed to Monument of Triumph), it seems some prior Destiny staff are now working on Marathon. Not that the extraction shooter has been doing huge numbers, but Sony is hopeful and committed to it. For now.
