Destiny 3 not in development claims report as Bungie faces more layoffs

Bungie has announced updates for Destiny 2 will officially end next month, as the studio’s future looks uncertain.

Bungie has been on shaky ground for some time after several rounds of layoffs over recent years, and it’s reportedly set to face even more. 

In a blog post on Thursday (May 21), the studio announced it is ending updates for Destiny 2 on June 9, 2026 to focus on new games. 

‘While our love for Destiny 2 has not changed, it has become clear that after The Final Shape, we have reached the time for our shared worlds, and Destiny, to live beyond Destiny 2,’ the blog post reads. 

‘As our focus turns towards a new beginning for Bungie, we will begin work incubating our next games. To that end, on June 9, 2026, we will release the final live service content update for Destiny 2 to begin that new journey as a studio.’

Bungie said it will ensure that Destiny 2 remains playable beyond this date, just like the original Destiny. ‘Many changes in this final update will aim to ensure that Destiny 2 is a welcoming place for players to return to,’ it added. 

While you might assume one of Bungie’s ‘next games’ would be a direct sequel to Destiny 2, which has already been rumoured, a Bloomberg report claims the studio doesn’t plan to ‘immediately enter production on a Destiny 3’. 

Instead, it’s claimed Bungie staff are planning to pitch new projects, with some set in the Destiny franchise. However, it’s said none of these have been approved yet, which suggests any future games from the studio will be a long ways off. 

In the meantime, Bungie will reportedly focus on updates for Marathon. The extraction shooter launched in March and, based on US sales data, sold pretty well – but the player numbers have notably dropped since then. According to SteamDB, Marathon hit 12,054 concurrent players in the past 24 hours on Steam, a sharp drop from its all-time peak of 88,337 two months ago. 

While it remains to be seen if Bungie can turn Marathon’s fortunes around, sources via Bloomberg state a ‘significant’ number of layoffs are planned at the studio following the end of Destiny 2. Bungie was previously hit with sweeping layoffs in 2024 and 2023. 

There’s no mention of how many people could be affected, but the prospect of another round of layoffs isn’t too surprising when you consider Sony’s lack of return on investment into the studio. Sony bought Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, and just recently, it reported a $765 million impairment loss related to Bungie assets following the launch of Marathon. 

This all paints a pretty bleak picture for Bungie’s future, especially if it doesn’t have Destiny 3 in the oven as a financial lifeline. If anything, this puts even more pressure on Marathon’s long term success, but as a pretty unforgiving extraction shooter, it hardly feels destined for mass appeal. 

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.