“We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny. Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.”

While this is a positive step, there’s a reason Bungie hasn’t attempted this before: It’s far from easy. “Bringing this content back is not as simple as restoring old files. Changes made to Destiny 2 since Beyond Light require us to update lighting, encounters, combatants, and other underlying systems. That work will take time, but it is necessary to ensure returning content meets the stability and gameplay standards of Destiny 2 today.”

Of course, the other big question is: Why? Monuments of Triumph was the last major content update for the looter shooter and was followed by mass layoffs that impacted the entire team. According to Bungie, “When we announced that Monuments of Triumph would be the final content update to Destiny 2, you responded in force. Your voices mattered, and the way you showed up made a real impact. You reminded everyone how much this world, its history, and its future still mean to you.”

“Destiny is foundational to Bungie’s future. We have more stories to tell, new worlds to build, but we have to do it right and give our teams the time they need to do justice to this amazing universe.

“All of this is to say, we are not done with Destiny.”

More details will be revealed in the coming months, including how exactly Bungie will begin the unvaulting process. Based on its wording, it certainly seems like the developer wants to continue supporting Destiny 2, though how that manifests (and whether it’s new content) remains to be seen. It’s also possible that it could opt to create a spin-off or something else set in the same universe, thus fulfilling the promise of “new stories” and “worlds.”

As for Marathon, the team is looking to create a “deeper survival experience” and evolve “beyond the genre constraints placed on it.” Of course, we already know about some of those plans, coming in December’s Symbiosis update, including an experimental Team Deathmatch mode, social space/firing range, and a dedicated PvE experience.

There will be more later this week on the shooter “future vision,” and if nothing else, it should tell us more about what to expect in October when Nightfall Refresh lands.

“As someone who’s worked on both Destiny and Marathon, I can confirm that the ‘leak’ about us merging the two IPs is fake. They share a lot of the same Bungie DNA, but like siblings, they’re also their own independent entities. Please don’t believe everything you read online.”

The rumor, which can be seen in the Marathon subreddit, makes several improbable claims, like Marathon getting a new PvE mode dubbed Investigations that would feature boss fights in the vein of Destiny’s raids, and that the extraction shooter would be going free-to-play in December.

The gameplay loop of the Investigations mode would involve 1 to 5 players taking on missions that were seemingly based on the gameplay loop of Monster Hunter and the Salmon Run mode from Splatoon, and would also include an element of extraction, culminating in epic boss battles.

Tying Marathon into Destiny would have been especially difficult. The rumor claimed that the former would be retooled into being a depiction of humanity’s Golden Age, as has been written about throughout lore entries in Destiny. However, anyone with a passing knowledge of either of the two franchises’ stories would have pointed out how difficult this is, since Marathon has its own lore that spans the course of several years, with 1996’s Marathon Infinity stretching the timeline out into Eternity.

Similarly, Destiny has quite a bit of established lore already set up before and after humanity’s Golden Age, and as such, no mention of the Marathon universe is made aside from a few Easter eggs like the presence of the MIDA weapons.

The fact that “most of” Destiny’s team faced layoffs earlier this year, with all content plans for the online loot-based shooter having been canceled, would also make the prospect of Bungie going back to the franchise at such short notice less probable.

In the meantime, Bungie has announced that it has pushed back Marathon’s next major content update from its previously planned September 22nd release date to December 8th. The decision comes as part of a larger plan to move the extraction shooter away from the seasonal content model. The studio also said that it delayed the update so that it could give the team “more flexibility to build, test, and improve features before they are released.”

The update, dubbed Symbiosis, will feature a refreshed version of Perimeter, a new Runner Shell, a Team Deathmatch game mode, and improvements in other areas of the game, like onboarding for new players. Interestingly, the update will also introduce a major new addition to the game in the form of a social hub area where players can hang out and even test out their weapons together at a firing range.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

“As part of that acquisition, Bungie also had a whole bunch of other live service games in the works that Sony wanted to see come out in the subsequent years in addition to, of course, Destiny 2, which is Bungie’s big ongoing project,” he explained before going on to discuss how “most of those projects fell apart” over the course of time “for a variety of reasons”.

It is worth noting that, currently, Bungie is in quite a dire state, having been hit by layoffs back in June that involved 292 job cuts. Many of these developers had been working on Destiny 2 at the time, according to Sony’s Herman Hulst. Reports at the time had also indicated that studio head Justice Truman was stepping down.

In July, this would then be followed by the departure of Marathon’s game director, Joe Ziegler. The role has since been taken on by Del Chafe III, and Julia Nardin has been made the creative director on the title.

“Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future. As for me, I’ll be heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon.”

As recently as last month, Bungie had continued to experiment with Marathon by bringing in the game’s first true PvE mode – Vault Breaker. The mode tasked players with heading into the Cryo Archive, where they would face UESC enemies. No other players are present for this game mode aside from the player’s own team. There are also options for Duos and Trios matchmaking, as well as a solo mode.

The studio is also currently working on Season 3 content for Marathon. Slated for launch on September 22nd, the season will bring revamps to Perimeter as well as a brand-new Runner Shell.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our thoughts on its PvE game mode, as well as our review from when the extraction shooter first came out.

As for Destiny 2, Bungie had announced that it was ending support for the shooter back in May. It got its final content update in June, and there are currently no confirmed plans for the franchise moving forward. Rumors had also indicated that, contrary to popular belief, there was no Destiny 3 in development at Bungie. In the meantime, however, Destiny and Destiny 2 are both still playable, and there don’t seem to be any plans to shut down the servers, at least for now.

In a turn of events that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone paying attention to the games industry, Fortnite has taken the number one spot across PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. On the PlayStation side of things, the top 5 aside from Fortnite include NBA 2K26, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Roblox, and Grand Theft Auto 5 Remastered. Xbox, on the other hand, features Roblox, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto 5 Remastered, and Minecraft in its top 5.

“Each list had exactly one new game reach the top 20. The rest were mostly long-running live service or annualized sports titles,” acknowledged Piscatella. “This is just the PS/XBX market right now.” In another post, he noted that the current market leads to “thousands of other games that come out every year fighting for the attention of a relatively small enthusiast portion of the total player base.”

As we get deeper in both lists, we continue to see the trend of older live-service titles, like Apex Legends and Rocket League. There are a few exceptions to be seen, however. Palworld’s recent 1.0 release likely played a large role in letting it breach the top 20 list, for instance. Similarly, on Xbox, Destiny 2 has managed to climb up to number 19. Curiously, the Xbox list also included Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, which is entirely missing from the PS5 side. Shift at Midnight’s absence from PlayStation’s list, on the other hand, is more understandable due to it simply not getting released on the platform.

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls‘ presence on the PS5 list also represents an interesting data point, since the game hasn’t yet been released, and was only available for a single weekend.

It looks like Steam is the only one of the three platforms to offer a more diverse list of the most-played games. Palworld currently sits at the top of the list, followed by Counter-Strike 2, Battlefield 6, Slay the Spire 2, and Marvel Rivals rounding up the top 5. Further in, we also get to see titles like the indie hit Meccha Chameleon before more live-service games like Helldivers 2, Destiny 2, and Rocket League come in. The presence of Valve’s Deadlock is also noteworthy, since it is still an invite-only game that hasn’t yet been officially released to the public.

Seeing lists like this that are broadly dominated by live-service games goes a long way in explaining the reasoning behind companies chasing similar trends, even if they happen to fail. We last saw this with Sony’s push towards live-service games, which ultimately culminated in a lack of new game releases, the cancelation of several projects, and even some studios being shuttered.

"Surely expanding the list to 20 would show plenty of new games"Well. Sure. Each list had exactly one new game reach the top 20. The rest were mostly long running live service or annualized sports titles.This is just the PS/XBX market right now.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T15:44:17.812Z

Circana Player Engagement Tracker – US Top 10 Titles by Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) – W/E Jul 25, 2026- Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls debuted 17th on PlayStation- Shift at Midnight ranked 17th on Xbox in launch week- Path of Exile jumped to 19th on Steam from 119th a week ago

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T14:30:28.614Z

The news comes from a report by Game File, which has drawn on information from a notice to the Washington State Employment Security Department from Sony. Of course, that number doesn’t account for employees from locations outside of Washington, but it’s quite a grim situation, affecting people across various teams, like art, technical departments, audio and sound, engineering, production, integrated support, and system design.

Several impacted employees were folks working on Destiny 2, thanks to a recent statement from Herman Hulst himself, while rumors of Justin Truman stepping down are becoming increasingly true. Additionally, there is speculation that Jason Jones, one of the studio’s co-founders, might also be impacted, since one of the reported layoffs is the company’s Chief Vision Officer. Jones is known for keeping a low profile, but he did appear in a video promoting Destiny 2, where the title is attributed to him.

We’re keeping a close eye on this one, and as much as we hate to be the bearers of bad news, you can be sure that we’ll tell you more as soon as possible. Of course, Marathon, despite also suffering some layoffs, will continue, with its next major update planned for July 21st and Season 3 hitting on September 22nd.

Before succeeding previous CEO Pete Parsons, Truman has worn many hats on Destiny 2, serving as a development lead and a gameplay experience director before becoming chief development officer. However, his experience with the company stretches even further back as he worked on Halo: Reach and then the original Destiny.

Truman became studio head in August 2025, which means he spent less than a year in the role. With PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst noting that “most” of the Destiny team facing layoffs, it’s probably a given that someone with such a huge background in the series would leave.

The question now is who will step into the role, and whether PlayStation will be much more heavily involved. Hulst already hinted at Marathon being a larger focus, though that team is apparently incubating other exciting projects. At this point, there isn’t much else to do but wait for more details.

As for Marathon, its next big update arrives on July 21st, adding a PvE version of Cryo Archive called Vault Breaker. The team also announced that Season 3 would go live on September 22nd and add a new Runner Shell and overhaul the Perimeter map with new encounters and whatnot.

According to Hulst, the decision was made “only after extensive discussion and careful consideration.” “Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio’s long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy. We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals.”

Praising the franchise as a whole, he noted that Bungie would begin a “new journey” after the recent final content update for Destiny 2. Whether that means a new project or something else remains to be seen. According to reports before this announcement, Destiny 3 is not in development.

As for Marathon, Sony considers it an “important part of our portfolio,” and Hulst says it will “continue to support the team as they build on the strong foundation established in Season 1 and 2, and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects.” The latter is seemingly “too early to discuss”, but the company is “encouraged by the creativity and opportunities that lie ahead.” Potential spin-offs or something else entirely? It would certainly be an interesting option to explore, especially since the extraction shooter hasn’t exactly been setting the charts on fire or hitting record player counts, at least on Steam.

Regarding those facing layoffs, Hulst said, “We are providing transition support and, where possible, working to identify opportunities across SIE and our global network of studios.” This is similar to what happened in June 2024 when 155 roles from Bungie were integrated into PlayStation, resulting in new studios like teamLFG.

We may only know the extent of layoffs in the coming months, so stay tuned, but based on previous reports, they’re looking to be “significant.”

“As the leaders of Bungie, past and present, we recognize Destiny 2 fell short of expectations these past several years. Following our final content update to Destiny 2, and with our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size,” it stated.

While aware of the “profound impact” this would have on those laid off, leadership noted that the changes “are necessary to best position the studio now and for the future.” Further details will be revealed at an unknown date.

Bungie didn’t divulge the number of layoffs, but Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claims that they’re “significant.” Other reports allege that 50 percent of the studio will face layoffs, which would bring its apparent size of 850 employees as of June 2024 down to roughly 425, if not lower.

Keep in mind that the current headcount is after mass layoffs following the disappointing performance of Destiny 2: The Final Shape. Of course, these reported reductions are far from confirmed, but as it stands, expect major changes at the studio going forward.

And for those hoping that Destiny 3 could help its fortunes, reports indicate that it’s not in production. Destiny 2’s servers will remain available for the time being, but while Monument of Triumph has provided more than enough to keep fans satisfied for the time being, there won’t be any major fixes or changes for the foreseeable future. As always, stay tuned for further updates and details on the studio in the coming months.

But one of the more interesting stories out of this whole ordeal is Marathon. When Bungie announced that its flagship looter shooter would no longer receive new content…well, some fans didn’t take it very kindly, and resorted to review-bombing the extraction shooter (which wasn’t enough to really drag down its Steam score but still). A small dispute of sorts broke out as many encouraged boycotting Marathon.

This all made for an awkward launch to its second season, NIGHTFALL, on June 2nd. In terms of new content, it added a night version of Dire Marsh, imaginatively titled Night Marsh. And while it did offer several new additions, from oppressive darkness that required light sources to new enemy types, the real appeal was seemingly in the new limited PvE mode, where a squad with Sponsored Kits could occupy the map for the first several minutes before Rooks, a Runner Shell meant for solos, began backfilling.

Even with all the uproar around Destiny 2, and thanks in part to a free week, Marathon crawled back up to just under 41,000 peak concurrent players on Steam. Of course, this is still a massive drop from nearly 89,000 concurrent players when it launched in March, but surely this momentum—with all these changes, new features, and loot—would hold…right?

"Even with all the uproar around Destiny 2, and thanks in part to a free week, Marathon crawled back up to just under 41,000 peak concurrent players on Steam."

Well, no. Two weeks later, and Marathon is slowly sliding back down to where it was before Season 2’s launch. Yikes.

There are several ways of looking at this, of course. The market is overly saturated with online games, especially in the free-to-play space where most want to stick with their comfort picks. The season’s release timing – the same day as State of Play – coupled with Destiny 2‘s end of support and preceding several major showcases is just bad timing in terms of exposure and word of mouth. The live-service business model is one that’s seen nothing but losses at this point, particularly earlier this year with Highguard. Marathon also costs $40 – not the highest price of admission but also not enough to beat free. And even when it was free, the number of players willing to check it out, at least on Steam, is disappointing at best.

It would be enough to chalk it up as another live-service failure and move on, but that’s not quite so simple. For starters, Marathon reportedly cost more than $200 million, close to $250 million, and it’s confirmed to have been in development for four years. That budget isn’t too hard to believe considering the pre-launch marketing, the all-star voice cast, and so on (and yet it launched with even fewer PvP maps than Destiny 1, but that’s neither here nor there). But the fact that Bungie was willing to delay it proves that (a) the overall state of the game was nowhere near as polished as it wanted, (b) it needed time to build some positive buzz around it, and (c) Sony clearly has a significant amount riding on it.

I mean, look no further than the company’s statements after its last financial report, where it was revealed to have suffered $765 million in impairment losses because of Bungie. It even admitted outright that the developer’s title portfolio “did not reach our expectations.”

"For starters, Marathon reportedly cost more than $200 million, close to $250 million, and it’s confirmed to have been in development for four years."

That said, it wasn’t going to pull a Concord and suddenly abandon the game. Sony noted strong reviews, including on Steam, and high player retention. So the goal was to then “improve the performance of the game by working to retain highly engaged core users through the introduction of additional content, further improvements in the gameplay experience, and expansion of the user base.”

However, Bungie has done all these things. Not only could it not reach the heights of the game’s launch, but player numbers have dropped right back down to what they were before.

And that’s a problem for many reasons because that apparent near $250 million budget probably doesn’t account for post-launch content. Or the cost of running servers. Or the cost of additional marketing, like those fancy cinematic trailers.

Sales figures remain unknown – all we have are reports that it had 2.2 million players in March. It’s very much possible that there’s a thriving community on consoles, but even in terms of actual numbers, it appears to be far below the likes of, say, ARC Raiders – another extraction shooter whose Steam player base is nowhere near its peak.

The problem with Marathon is, and always has been, the more hardcore PvP approach. Bungie could take every step possible to mitigate gear losses or pile on the loot, but it was built from day one to be a more ruthless competitive experience. It’s a game where a highly skilled player could absolutely thrive…just as much as a highly skilled team could effectively shut down anyone, and wipe out a good chunk of their progress. Unlike ARC Raiders, the avenues for avoiding other players, much less getting matched with those who aren’t out for blood, are far lower. And I say this as someone who enjoyed my time with it, learning the ins and outs of Tau Ceti IV – its hazardous flora, its mysterious events, and the sheer terror of trying to survive while savoring the gunplay.

"The problem with Marathon is, and always has been, the more hardcore PvP approach."

The funny thing is that it’s nowhere near as hardcore or realistic as Escape from Tarkov, and yet, even that’s seeing better Steam numbers. Marathon definitely offers a far more polished experience, but it’s also trying to appeal to a wider audience. First impressions matter though, and those who weren’t hooked from the get-go, either because of the messy UI or the punishing gameplay, clearly didn’t want to stick around. Which makes these experimental PvE modes all the more questionable, because Bungie has a PvE-focused game that it’s committed so many resources to over the years, just recently put out to pasture.

I can’t really tell you if there’s a solution to the whole Marathon problem because it may have been doomed from the start. Even with its announcement, the sheer bafflement at the classic FPS trilogy being turned into an extraction shooter was overwhelming. There was hope at the time that Bungie, of all developers, could probably pull it off. Call it a coin toss, because even the most skeptical of Destiny 2 players (read: me) admitted that the studio had its wins here and there.

But for Sony, it’s probably becoming clearer that Marathon won’t become a worthy live-service addition. It may be fine enough for a small hardcore community, but with that budget and given the spending on post-launch content – never mind how much Bungie costs to maintain in general – that’s simply not enough.

And with rumors of layoffs looming large at the studio, Sony may be content to just let Marathon ride out the remainder of its roadmap, offsetting costs by paying fewer salaries. By this time next year, it wouldn’t be surprising if it too gets that tearful end-of-support warning. Such is the nature of the industry, but you would think that Sony would have known better from the start rather than continuing to persist. But such is the siren of live-service, and the fate of those ensnared by its song.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

It hasn’t all been great, but we can safely say that this is a title that we’re all going to miss. The trailer seems to understand that, and there’s a hint of the sadness that sudden goodbyes often bring, underlining all the cool stuff coming on June 9th. Earth is on the mend, and the Guardians must look towards the future. There are still things to do, and new triumphs and rewards to uncover in the Pantheon, where you’re going to be taking on returning Raid Bosses with cool new Distortion abilities that look quite nasty to be on the receiving end of.

Sparrow Racing League is making its return, and you’re going to be racing against your fellow Guardians on some very cool-looking speeders. The future beckons, but whether that includes Destiny 3 is still uncertain. It might have made learning about the game’s last days a tad easier, and perhaps even helped lessen the shock of what might have been the best-kept secret at Bungie. Nevertheless, it’s nearly time to tip our collective hats to a looter shooter that has had a good run, all things considered.