Bungie, the Bellevue-based video game studio that created the popular “Halo” and “Destiny” franchises, laid off almost 300 local employees Wednesday in its third round of layoffs in three years.
The “significant” cuts will affect most of the team behind the “Destiny” series and some members of the team behind the first-person shooter “Marathon,” Hermen Hulst, CEO of Sony Studio Business Group, said in a Wednesday email to Sony Interactive Entertainment employees.
The layoffs affected 292 employees at the studio’s downtown Bellevue headquarters, according to a state regulatory filing.
Bungie was acquired in 2022 by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.
Hulst did not say how many employees would be affected. Bungie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a social media post, Bungie said the cuts are the result of a reorganization at the studio following the final content update to “Destiny 2,” which came out in 2017 and has received updates and expansion packs since then. The post said the game “fell short of expectations” over the past several years.
“With our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size,” the post said.
It’s unclear how many Bellevue-based employees Bungie has. The company once had 1,000 employees based in Bellevue, according to a 2023 annual financial report from the city.
After Bungie was acquired by Sony for $3.6 billion, it went through two rounds of layoffs before Wednesday’s announcement. Between October 2023 and July 2024, the studio laid off roughly 320 employees.
The acquisition and rounds of layoffs came after Bungie announced a major expansion in its Bellevue headquarters in 2021. The company, then independent, expanded its footprint in downtown Bellevue from 84,000 square feet to more than 208,000 square feet.
The Puget Sound Business Journal reported in 2021 that Bungie was leasing several floors of office space in downtown Seattle as well.
Founded in 1991, Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, a year before the tech giant launched the original Xbox. Bungie’s first-person shooter “Halo” was included in the Xbox rollout and became a massive success that spawned a decadeslong franchise. The “Halo” series is now developed and run by Microsoft’s gaming division.
Bungie’s layoffs precede expected cuts in Microsoft’s Xbox division. After a leadership shuffle, Microsoft’s gaming division is undergoing a “reset” as it develops its next video game console, according to new gaming CEO Asha Sharma.
Though Microsoft has not confirmed it, several media outlets reported earlier this month that major job cuts are expected to hit the Xbox division in early July after Microsoft’s fiscal year ends on June 30.
Alex Halverson: 206-652-6352 or ahalverson@seattletimes.com. Alex Halverson is a tech reporter at The Seattle Times, where he covers some of the region’s largest employers, including Amazon and Microsoft.