The developers behind Destiny 2 issued an empty statement regarding the game’s future in the wake of massive layoffs, an organizational restructure, and crashing player counts.
A screenshot from Destiny 2 (2019), Bungie
The developers posted to X, “We know that recent changes at Bungie have created uncertainty surrounding the future of Destiny. Rest assured we remain committed to Destiny, to supporting our community with transparency, and to delivering regular updates about the game.”
In a follow-up, the team added, “We’ll be talking with you all about the future of Destiny and plans for our next multi-year journey soon. Once we plant a flag for the date, we’ll let you all know. Thank you for your patience, and we’ll see you again soon.”
Destiny 2 Team on X
READ: Report: After Massive Layoffs, Bungie To Make “Lighter, Smaller” Content Updates For ‘Destiny 2’
It’s unclear what the purpose of this statement is, but it is possible it was meant to allay fears that Destiny 2 would significantly alter its development cycle. A rumor from Jeff Grubb at Giant Bomb at the beginning of August claimed that this would be the case. Grubb explained, “Basically, they are going to continue working on Marathon and Destiny 2. They are going to keep making new content for Destiny 2. Now, when it comes to Destiny 2, the expectation, I believe, internally is that the future content will be lighter, smaller to take less time than what The Final Shape did, require fewer people.”
He continued, “So, there will be expansions and updates, but they will sort of be not a shell of their former selves, but they’ll definitely have that vibe about them.”
Grubb later added, “Destiny 2 continuing to go. Probably starting up some new seasons or whatever.”
Given the fact the statement does not address the rumor or provide any concrete details about the future of Destiny 2 other than to claim future announcements will take place, would seemingly lend credence to the rumor that changes in the development cycle are coming.
Furthermore, the fact that it does not address what the development cycle would be or provide any kind of forward-looking plan, but rather just a promise of a future announcement would seem to indicate there might not be a captain at the helm and Bungie has no clue what they are actually doing after shedding nearly a third of its entire staff at the end of July.
A screenshot from Destiny 2 (2019), Bungie
Bungie CEO and Chairman Pete Parsons announced the huge changes to the studio in a blog post. He wrote, “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. That means beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio’s workforce. These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles.”
He added, “We are committing to two other major changes today that we believe will support our focus, leverage Sony’s strengths, and create new opportunities for Bungie talent. First, we are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force.”
“Second, we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development,” Parsons shared.
A screenshot from Destiny 2: The Final Shape (2024), Bungie
Sony President and CFO Hiroki Totoki also addressed Bungie’s restructuring stating, “At this moment, Bungie restructuring has already been announced, and, at this moment, for this restructuring, the purpose is cost restructure and portfolio optimization. Those are the purposes. And simultaneously we have to house efficiency of the business. So back office functions should be integrated with the studio, SIE.”
He continued, “So Bungie [will focus on] Destiny 2 and new live-service Marathon. Head counts and resources will be concentrated there. So high quality and wonderful game experiences should be developed. So we’ll concentrate resources there. Other types of title development will be transferred to the PlayStation studio group. So there will be some reallocation of the resources. So, in any case, the organizational structure will be changed.”
A screenshot from Destiny 2 (2019), Bungie
While these changes are being made, Destiny 2’s concurrent player counts have significantly decreased much faster following its most recent expansion, The Final Shape, compared to its previous expansion Lightfall.
Destiny 2 nearly hit its peak concurrent player when it released The Final Shape at the beginning of June. The game hit 314,634 concurrent players the day the expansion dropped. That peak concurrent has declined to 53,452 concurrent players as of the last 24 hours.
A screenshot of Destiny 2’s concurrent player numbers via SteamDB
The previous expansion Lightfall released at the end of February 2023 and took the game to its all-time peak concurrent player count of 316,750. The game had much stronger concurrent player numbers in its first two months compared to The Final Shape.
By the end of April 2023, it still had a peak concurrent player base of 96,824, which is nearly double The Final Shape’s concurrent player numbers after about two months.
A screenshot from Destiny 2: The Final Shape (2024), Bungie
What do you make of this statement from the Destiny 2 development team?
