I have spent thousands of hours in Destiny 2, and after Bungie’s June 25 layoffs, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Destiny 3‘s future now looks bleaker than ever. Even after all the frustration, burnout, bad decisions, and long stretches where I felt like I would much rather be playing something else, I still don’t know if any other shooter has ever felt quite like Destiny. Bungie’s gunplay has always been the thing the franchise could fall back on when everything else was falling apart, which is why these layoffs, even more than Destiny 2‘s final patch, feel like it has all truly, finally come crumbling down to a definitive end.
Destiny 2‘s final update, Monument of Triumph, already felt like a goodbye, but there was still a small part of me that wanted to believe it might be clearing the way for something new. Bungie’s own send-off message said Destiny needed to live beyond Destiny 2, which gave me and many others just enough room to cope, hoping that Destiny 3 or some other major Destiny project could eventually happenn. But with most of the Destiny team reportedly affected by the cuts, future projects still described as being in early incubation, and Destiny 3 previously reported as not being in active production, that hope now feels like nothing more than a fool’s hope.
Destiny 2’s Shaxx Followed Me Into 007 First Light and Back Again
Shaxx unexpectedly followed me into 007 First Light, and now Greenway has followed me back into Destiny 2 at the worst possible time.
Destiny 2’s Final Update Made Destiny 3 Feel Possible Again
For a while, Monument of Triumph almost made it possible to dream again. Rather than going out with a whimper, Bungie gave us one of the most substantial, game-changing Destiny 2 updates we’ve ever seen, to the point that Steam player counts alone have been breaking records for weeks straight. It was all the quality-of-life improvements that came rushing in once Bungie finally decided to open the floodgates and give us what we’ve been asking for that made us all come back—and many of us, I think, were willing to stick around for the foreseeable future. It has all been bittersweet, but it has also been one of the most powerful gaming moments I think any of us have ever had.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
The official send-off language also left just enough room for us to hope. Bungie said Destiny needed to live beyond Destiny 2, talked about a new beginning, and promised players would hear more when there was more news to share on Destiny. Those phrases may not have been Destiny 3 teases in the concrete sense, but for a community that has spent years reading between the lines of lore tabs, post-credit moments, and strange wording in TWIDs, it was enough to make us wonder if this was all going to end in a massive April Fool’s joke in June.
For a while, Monument of Triumph almost made it possible to dream again.
I, like many others, wanted to believe there was a plan behind the silence. Maybe Destiny 2 needed to end so Bungie could finally stop trying to build a new future on top of a nine-year-old game. Maybe the final update was the necessary closing chapter before something more sustainable could begin. That was the dream I was holding onto, no matter how irrational it seemed. The problem is that dreams like this need people to build them, and after these layoffs, it’s much harder to look at Bungie and imagine a hidden Destiny 3 machine spinning up behind the curtain.
Losing the Destiny Team Makes the Dream Feel Almost Impossible
The hardest part of this moment is not simply that layoffs happened. Layoffs are always brutal no matter what, and the human cost of cuts like this should be the first thing anyone thinks about. People who built the memories fans are mourning are now losing their dream jobs, and no article about a video game sequel should treat that like just another bullet point in a business story.
Still, it’s impossible to ignore what these layoffs likely mean for Destiny‘s future. Sony confirmed that the layoffs affect a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team. Bungie itself said Destiny 2 fell short of expectations over the past several years and that, after the final content update, its future projects are still in early incubation. To me, that doesn’t sound at all like a studio preparing to reveal or even begin working on Destiny 3, but like a studio just trying to survive the end of Destiny 2 so they can go work on Marathon with the people they have left.
The reported departure of studio head Justin Truman only makes the moment feel even more final. Leadership changes are always complicated, and there’s no need to pretend one person alone determines the future of a franchise this large. Even so, a massive layoff hitting the Destiny team alongside a studio head departure sends a very clear emotional signal to players who were still hoping Bungie had one more big Destiny swing left.
Layoffs are always brutal no matter what, and the human cost of cuts like this should be the first thing anyone thinks about.
For me, the most painful part is thinking about the people who made Destiny feel like Destiny. If reports and former developers’ public posts are any indication, this “restructuring,” if you even want to put that label on these things anymore, hit the people in charge of the Destiny 2 sandbox. When former developers say something on social media about looking for new studios where they can help bring shooting and looting up to modern standards, it says a lot about what the industry is losing from Bungie.
If the people who truly understood the game’s bones are gone, or if most of the Destiny team in general has been gutted, then Destiny 3 officially feels like something fans will talk about the way they talk about other games that never truly existed. It becomes a what-if rather than a when. It becomes a hallway Bungie may not and likely won’t ever walk down.
Destiny 3’s Chances Are Immensely Slim
All of that said, I do still want to be wrong. I would love to wake up someday and see Bungie announce a focused, ambitious Destiny 3 that respects everything players loved while leaving behind everything Destiny 2 could never fix. I would love to believe Monument of Triumph was a goodbye to one version of Destiny, not to Destiny as a living, evolving idea. But right now, it’s hard to see that future clearly.
Bungie is moving forward with Marathon, future projects are still early, and the people who carried Destiny 2 through its final years are now being scattered across the industry. There may still be something called Destiny one day, but Destiny 3, as we all imagined it, feels more distant than it ever has.
After these layoffs, saying Destiny 3 looks unlikely feels like the understatement of the century. Rather, it looks like the dream of a community that is still trying to process the end of one of the most important looter shooters ever made. Monument of Triumph let us say goodbye to Destiny 2, but these layoffs make it feel like we might also be saying goodbye to the only architect who could have built its future.
- Released
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August 28, 2017
- ESRB
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T For TEEN for Blood, Language, and Violence
