The upcoming Bungie revival of their classic series Marathon is receiving a new director. This is amid reports that additional changes are happening at the studio. While the studio still has the most successful Destiny 2, their acquisition at the hands of Sony years ago has failed to lead to the profit lines that the company had hoped for.
This news also follows an extremely turbulent year for the studio, having been hit with large-scale lay-offs in 2023. Around this time it also came out that Sony had the option to dissolve Bungies’ current board and replace it with one of their choosing should the company fail to meet quotas. While this isn’t uncommon, the idea feels disingenuous given that Sony acquired Bungie on the promise of letting them operate fully autonomously.
Previous project lead Christopher Barrett was swapped out with Joe Ziegler, who has been the game director for roughly 9 months. Gamers might know Ziegler from his previous work on Riot Games’ popular PC shooter Valorant. Ziegler himself took to Twitter to confirm this fact:
According to IGN reporting, implementing Ziegler as the project lead is part of a wider shake-up for the leadership and direction of the game. One of the changes to draw some ire is the potential shift away from customizable characters, to a hero character focus akin to Valorant or Overwatch. While these games have been popular over recent years, customizable characters do lend you the freedom to tailor your experience and not be limited by other players’ choices.
IGN also stated that this is all happening while an “ongoing anxiety” hangs over the studio. Many have voiced their concern that the upcoming release of Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape on June 4th could be followed by a fresh batch of lay-offs, depending on how the expansion performs.
This year offered little in the way of job security for industry members. In little over 10 months the gaming industry has seen close to 10,000 terminations, job redundancies, and lay-offs, and it looks like we can’t count on them ending any time soon.
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