Bungie Shuffles Marathon Leadership as Fears of Further Layoffs Loom

Embattled developer Bungie is betting big on its in-development next live service offering, Marathon, the successor to Destiny 2, and a north star for the seemingly rudderless studio to sail towards. Despite suffering through a round of layoffs as recently as October, it’s feared there may be more to come amidst the removal of long-time Bungie designer Christopher Barrett as game director.

According to a bombshell report from IGN citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, Barrett has already been replaced in the director’s chair by Joe Ziegler, the former Valorant game director who joined Bungie in 2022. That particular aspect of Ziegler’s resume is quite important because, according to the report, Bungie is “pouring resources into getting Marathon out the door” and fundamentally shifting the direction of the game by “moving away from custom player characters in favour of a selectable cast of heroes”.

Whatever your feelings on the current state of hero shooters, it looks like this change happened a while ago, and we are just now learning about it. Ziegler announced on Twitter that he’s been game director on Marathon for nine months already, which was then reposted by the official Bungie account.

Worse, while pushing out Destiny 2’s last expansion, The Final Shape, remains Bungie’s highest priority, rumours are rife within the studio that more layoffs will swiftly follow its launch. One employee with knowledge of Bungie’s current budgets quite damningly stated that “something will need to happen to curb costs unless The Final Shape does so well to cover the gap and people can move to Marathon” and that, even more concerning, “nothing adds up”.