When Sony officially acquired Destiny 2 developer Bungie in July 2022, nobody could have predicted the tumultuous year and a half that followed. In the wake of a big delay for the next major expansion The Final Shape and significant layoffs in late October, a bombshell report from IGN published Wednesday indicates that Bungie is in danger of a "total Sony takeover."
Not even Bungie employees know the full scope of the acquisition agreement, but when it was publicly announced, Bungie confirmed that it would remain an "independent subsidiary" run by its board of directors as chaired by Bungie CEO Pete Parsons, who spoke of the "creative independence that is the heartbeat of Bungie" at the time. If trends continue on their current path, that heartbeat could flatline in a matter of months.
Currently, the board also includes PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst and Sony senior VP Eric Lempel alongside Bungie CTO Luis Villegas and co-founder Jason Jones. Despite technical autonomy, Bungie is essentially led by executives from both companies with Parsons as the tiebreaker vote. However, there's an alarming catch: "If Bungie falls short of certain financial thresholds by too great an amount," IGN reports, "Sony is allowed to dissolve the existing board and take full control of the company."
Multiple anonymous sources in October claimed that Bungie, not Sony, was behind the recent layoffs. In light of the newly revealed financial pressures put on the company, it's clear that various cost-cutting measures are being taken to meet those "financial thresholds" to prevent — or at least delay — a takeover. The IGN report also notes "numerous other cost-cutting measures" that include a hiring freeze, the elimination of holiday bonuses, and reduced travel budgets, among many others. Bungie even stopped buying gift cards for employees' birthdays. It speaks to the "soul-crushing" morale at the company right now as we approach the release of The Final Shape.
"We know we need Final Shape to do well," an anonymous source told IGN. “And the feeling at the studio is that if it doesn’t we’re definitely looking at more layoffs.”
Given the current state of things, the future does not look optimistic. February 2022's The Witch Queen expansion was met with rave reviews, but its 2023 follow-up Lightfall fell far short of expectations, signaling a steady decline in the game's popularity over time.
Last month, the studio officially delayed The Final Shape, the next big expansion billed as the conclusion to the ten-year Light and Darkness saga. "The Final Shape is the culmination of the first ten years of Destiny storytelling and, for Guardians everywhere, countless hours spent together," Bungie wrote in a blog post announcing the delay. "We want to honor that journey, so we’re taking the time we need to deliver an even bigger and bolder vision, one that we hope will be remembered and treasured for years to come."
Then Season of the Wish launched on November 28 to the lowest peak number of players for any season ever, and Bungie responded to a great deal of negative feedback on Twitter. A major part of that blowback involved a $15 "Starter Pack" that felt like a cash grab at the time. In retrospect, it's starting to feel more like a desperate attempt to generate extra revenue to delay the inevitable.
Bungie famously developed the Xbox's flagship title Halo: Combat Evolved in the late '90s but went independent in 2007, later signing a publishing deal with Activision and then launching the original Destiny in 2014. Bungie once again went independent in 2019 only to get acquired by Sony a few years later. The studio's history is one of fighting for autonomy in an industry that seems to forbid it while struggling to monetize Destiny effectively. That has never changed, and it probably never will.
