When Sony announced its intention to acquire Destiny 2 developer Bungie in January 2022 for an eye-watering $.3.6 billion, it said the company would be “an independent subsidiary” under the direction of the studio’s then-current management team, and that it would remain a multiplatform studio with the option “to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play.” Destiny 2 seemed like a perpetual money machine, after all, and Sony saw no reason to fix what wasn’t broken.
But fast-forward through three very rough years for Bungie, and things aren’t nearly so rosy. And now it seems that Sony has seen enough, as Sony chief financial officer and corporate executive officer Lin Tao said during the company’s recent quarterly earnings call that those days of independence are coming to an end.
“At the time of acquisition, we were offering a very independent environment. So that was one way of thinking,” Tao said in response to a question about Bungie’s future governance (via Seeking Alpha, translated from Japanese). “However, thereafter, we have gone through structural reform as we announced last year. So from this type of independence, this independence is getting lighter.
“So Bungie is shifting into a role which is becoming more a part of PlayStation Studio. And integration is also proceeding. So in the long term, if you can see this as an ongoing process, the direction is to become part of PlayStation Studios.”
How much of a practical impact that will have on Bungie’s future is an open question. Sony has already carved off some pieces of Bungie and brought them under the PlayStation umbrella with little visible effect, and I can see it being pressed into more of a live service mercenary role for other Sony studios who need help on that front. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons—the car guy—is still in his position, but that could change as well once the studio is fully assimilated. Overall, though, it’s quite possible that from an outside perspective, Bungie will continue to lumber along more or less as it always has: Sony is basically a PC publisher now, so the likelihood of long waits for PlayStation-exclusive windows on Bungie games to expire seems very unlikely.
Regardless of what results, this outcome feels inevitable. Bungie’s struggles with Destiny 2 in recent years have been well documented, and have led to public dissatisfaction from Sony: In 2024 PlayStation chairman Hiroki Totoki called for more “accountability” from Bungie leadership on development budgets and deadlines.
The studio’s public image has taken big hits over layoffs at the studio that have reportedly left employee morale in “free fall,” while controversies over stolen assets, endless bugs in Destiny 2, and a seeming inability to do anything with Marathon have left Bungie looking like a studio that’s simply incapable of managing its own affairs. The recently released Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate expansion, which Bungie desperately needed to be a hit, was instead a catastrophe, to the point that PC Gamer’s Tim Clark—a man who once ignored multiple tornado warnings so he could finish a raid—wrote that he is “worried for both the future of the game and its studio.”
I suppose that’s the one upside to all this. Unlike, say, Firewalk Studios, Bungie is a big name with a long history, and it will survive. But in what form, exactly, and where it’s future will lead, is anyone’s guess.
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