Sony Bought Bungie for Destiny. Now Most of the Destiny Team Is Gone.

The 2022 Bungie acquisition was sold to shareholders as a live-service masterclass — a studio that could teach Sony how to run a forever-game.

The implicit asset wasn't the IP. It was the people who knew how to keep Destiny alive through a decade of seasonal content. Most of those people have since left.

Some walked after the 2024 layoffs. Some walked after the post-Final Shape reorg. Some walked because the live-service mandate from Sony's PlayStation Studios group quietly replaced the autonomy Bungie was promised.

Whatever the trigger, the institutional knowledge is gone — and rebuilding a live-service team is one of the hardest things in the industry.

Marathon's slip says everything you need to know about bench depth. Destiny's seasonal content keeps shipping, but the team running it now is half learning the codebase in public.

The acquisition thesis is quietly evaporating. Sony got the IP. Sony lost the team. Those are not the same purchase.