Bungie misrepresented its funds and had considerably overextended itself when Sony acquired the studio for $3.6 billion in 2022, former staff claimed in a brand new Game File report revealed within the wake of Wednesday’s layoffs.
It was apparently unhealthy sufficient that at the very least one supply described as a “effectively-linked former employee” went as far as to say that Bungie confronted dire penalties if the acquisition hadn’t occurred, saying that the “alternate historical past is insolvency.”
Their feedback paint the image of a studio that was struggling regardless of the success of Future and Future 2 attributable to supporting too many initiatives and different issues. Following the Sony acquisition, Sport File’s sources declare Bungie repeatedly missed its monetary targets, resulting in roughly 100 staff being laid off in November 2023.
A second spherical of layoffs adopted on Wednesday, impacting one other 220 folks, or 17 % of the studio’s workforce, with one other 155 being built-in elsewhere in Sony Interactive Leisure. Bungie can be spinning out considered one of its incubation initiatives to kind a brand new studio underneath the PlayStation banner.
Inside Bungie, the layoffs had been anticipated for a while. In December 2023, IGN reported that the sensation throughout the studio was that it confronted extra reductions if The Closing Form did not do effectively. However in accordance with Sport File’s supply, even The Closing Form being a significant blockbuster success could not have stopped the layoffs. Certainly, with Future 2 on the wane some seven years after its unique launch, The Closing Form reportedly didn’t outsell the earlier growth, Lightfall, regardless of being a essential success.
Former Bungie staff and different members of the video games business have been vocal within the wake of the layoffs, with lots of them blaming the studio’s management led by CEO Pete Parsons. Their sentiments have been echoed by these in Sport File’s report, claiming that Bungie “bought issues they have been simply not capable of ship.” Parsons, for his half, blamed the cuts on the rising prices of improvement and “enduring financial circumstances,” confirming that the studio had been “working within the purple” following delays to The Closing Form and Marathon.
Bungie is way from alone in being hit with layoffs, with different publishers together with EA, Xbox, Riot, and others additionally introducing cutbacks in what has been a troublesome yr for the video games business. For now, it can proceed to focus its efforts fully on Future and the upcoming Marathon, which doesn’t have a launch date and is at the moment set for a while in 2025.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s Information Director in addition to co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Ship her a DM at @the_katbot.