Bungie CEO Pete Parsons announced in a new statement that he was laying off 220 employees, or about 17% of the company's total staff. In addition, more than 200 people are leaving the team and moving to other PlayStation studios.
"Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon," Parsons writes.
The layoffs are expected to affect all levels of the company, including employees in senior and managerial positions. Anyone who loses their job as a result will be offered severance pay, including bonuses and health insurance.
Parsons writes that he understands how difficult such news is, especially given the success of the latest Destiny 2 expansion, The Final Shape. According to him, this was a necessary decision so that the company could change the focus of the business with more realistic goals and available finances.
At the beginning of 2022, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion, and one of the main parts of the deal was that the studio would remain independent. However, over the past two years, Sony has increasingly interfered in Bungie's work, and as a result of new layoffs, it has also taken over 155 employees, or another 12% of the total staff.
According to Parsons in a statement, Sony Interactive Entertainment will integrate 155 employees into its departments over the next few quarters. In addition, Bungie's new sci-fi action game in a new sci-fi universe will be spun off and a completely new studio will be created within PlayStation Studios to continue its development.
According to Jason Schreier, Bungie will also be leaving the project with about 40 more employees who will move to the new PlayStation studio, which will continue to develop the game. This brings the total number of employees leaving the studio to 400. The studio will retain 850 employees to continue working on Marathon and Destiny 2.
At the same time as this statement, Kotaku reports that the studio's CEO Pete Parsons bought more than 20 classic cars, some of which cost about a million dollars, after Sony bought Bungie. He continued to buy himself premium cars even after the company went through massive layoffs to save money.
Returning to the topic of Bungie's dependence on the PlayStation, well-known insider Jeff Grubb also said that the studio is now in the hands of Herman Hulst, who became one of the two new PlayStation executives after Jim Ryan left his post.
The new massive layoffs are the start of a new management team led by Hulst. Grubb says that it is likely that the studio will soon lose its autonomy and become a full part of Sony Interactive Entertainment.