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 Recreation File report revealed within the wake of Wednesday’s layoffs.
It was apparently dangerous sufficient that at the least one supply described as a “well-connected former employee” went as far as to assert 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 tasks and different issues. Following the Sony acquisition, Recreation File’s sources declare Bungie repeatedly missed its monetary targets, resulting in roughly 100 workers being laid off in November 2023.
A second spherical of layoffs adopted on Wednesday, impacting one other 220 individuals, or 17 p.c of the studio’s workforce, with one other 155 being built-in elsewhere in Sony Interactive Leisure. Bungie can also be spinning out considered one of its incubation tasks to type a brand new studio beneath 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 Ultimate Form did not do nicely. However based on Recreation File’s supply, even The Ultimate 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 Ultimate Form reportedly did not outsell the earlier growth, Lightfall, regardless of being a essential success.
Former Bungie staff and different members of the video games trade have been vocal within the wake of the layoffs, with a lot of them blaming the studio’s management led by CEO Pete Parsons. Their sentiments had been echoed by these in Recreation File’s report, claiming that Bungie “offered issues they had been simply not capable of ship.” Parsons, for his half, blamed the cuts on the rising prices of improvement and “enduring financial situations,” confirming that the studio had been “working within the crimson” following delays to The Ultimate Form and Marathon.
Bungie is much 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 trade. For now, it should proceed to focus its efforts solely on Future and the upcoming Marathon, which doesn’t have a launch date and is at present 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.