“Bungie leadership needs to be gutted completely.” Former Marathon dev says Bungie “was extremely toxic and humiliating” to work with days after art theft controversy

by

The highly anticipated 2025 video game Marathon, classified as an extraction shooter, has been making headlines lately, but not for positive reasons. Although its initial gameplay unveiling in April was generally well-received, since then, both the game and its developer – Bungie, known for creating Destiny 2 – have found themselves embroiled in several controversies. More recently, a former employee has come forward to express concerns about the leadership at the studio.

The remarks were made by a person known as Spirited, a previous employee of Bungie, who was involved in the development of both Destiny 2 and Marathon, specifically in the role of an online services technician.

In a since-removed post, someone who previously worked at Bungie on the game Marathon expressed empathy for those still employed there. They described their experience working with engineering and Marathon leadership as both toxic and humiliating. While they didn’t elaborate further, they strongly suggested that the entire Bungie leadership should be replaced entirely.

The statement is quite critical, and it follows close on the heels of an issue involving Bungie, where they were accused of stealing artwork for a game they developed back in 2017. This artist’s poster designs were used without permission. In response to this, the company stated that they are determined to make amends with the artist and have already reached out. However, similar incidents have occurred four times since 2021.

Over the recent weekend, as reported by Paul Tassi from Forbes, morale at Bungie seems to be plummeting, with team members expressing concerns about the potential impact on the company if their latest project, Marathon, does not sell well. To make matters worse, Bungie has had to abandon its initial plan for summer preorders and is now contemplating a series of public playtests rather than launching a full Open Beta in August.

The unfavorable news is a continuation of subpar Closed Alpha gameplay tests held from late April to early May, where player feedback was mostly unenthusiastic or outright negative. Interestingly, it appears that Bungie’s leadership disregarded warnings from developers about what would and wouldn’t work for the game Marathon, with the importance of a robust PvE (Player vs Environment) aspect being highlighted in Forbes’ report.

Developing…

Read More

2025-05-19 22:39