The studio is switching its focus to Marathon
According to a Bloomberg report, Bungie — the studio behind Destiny 2 and Marathon — is planning to make “a significant number of layoffs.” This news comes shortly after the announcement it would be ending development on Destiny 2, after nine years of support for the live-service shooter.
“Sony Group Corp.’s Bungie unit is planning a significant number of layoffs as it ends development on the long-running online shooter game Destiny 2, according to people familiar with the studio’s plans,” reads the Bloomberg report.
“The company doesn’t have a new project lined up for Destiny 2’s development team after the game comes to an end next month, according to the people, who asked to not be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak to press.”
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The report goes on to claim that despite staff at Bungie pitching new projects, including some within the Destiny universe, none have been greenlit yet. That means Destiny 3 hasn’t entered production yet. However, the studio is allocating more resources to Marathon after it hasn’t met expectations following its early March release date. According to SteamDB, the two games currently have similar player counts on the Steam platform: Destiny 2 and Marathon are both peaking at around 11-12,000 players daily.
According to the Bloomberg report, there had been talks at Bungie about “ways to retool Destiny 2 to make it more approachable for new players,” but the studio’s leaders decided to end development on the game instead.
Destiny 2 will remain playable into the future, “just as the original Destiny is today,” reads the blog post announcing the end of the game’s development. “Many changes in this final update will aim to ensure that Destiny 2 is a welcoming place for players to return to.”