‘Halo’ Video Game Studio Bungie Lays Off 17% of Staff, Restructures Development Strategy

Bungie, the Sony-owned video game studio behind “Halo” and “Destiny,” is laying off 220 employees, or roughly 17% of its workforce, CEO Pete Parsons announced Wednesday.

“Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on ‘Destiny’ and ‘Marathon,'” Parsons wrote in a blog post. “These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles.”

Impacted Bungie employees will receive exit packages including severance, a bonus and health coverage. The company will also host team meetings and town halls, team breakout sessions and private individual sessions to ensure its keeping communication open and transparent.

“I realize all of this is hard news, especially following the success we have seen with ‘The Final Shape.’ But as we’ve navigated the broader economic realities over the last year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials,” Parsons added.

In addition to the job cuts, Bungie will integrate 155 of its team members, or roughly 12% of its workforce, into Sony Interactive Entertainment over the next few quarters. Additionally, Bungie and PlayStation Studios leadership are working to create a new studio to develop one of its incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe.

“SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force,” Parsons said.

Bungie’s cuts come after Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees and Riot Games laid off 530 employees in January and Sony PlayStation laid off 900 employees in February, which impacted Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog. Electronic Arts also cut 650 jobs and an upcoming “Star Wars” video game, while Take-Two Interactive announced plans in April to cut 5% of its workforce and several unnamed projects.

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