Listen – end of live service support for Destiny 2 is frustrating, and there's no denying it. We're looking at a game that for many of us occupied all or at least a significant portion of our last decade of gaming, so the aggravation is not only understandable, it's completely justified. But no matter how painful the inevitable end of Destiny 2 is, and despite how justified we are to feel this heartbroken over the situation, there really is no excuse, nor is there any reason, to spew hate speech against Bungie, as if the studio is solely responsible.
It's easy to see all of this as solely a Bungie problem, but it really isn't. In 2022, 100% of the developer's shares were acquired by Sony, a company that ultimately went ahead with the acquisition as it believed Bungie would help advance its live-service ambitions in light of the continued success of Destiny 2. Just four years later, the game's ongoing development will end with a final update in June, and beyond that, it seems Destiny 3 doesn't happen either. In other words, as easy as it is to inflict death Destiny 2 On Bungie alone, Sony's role in the whole thing makes that conclusion much harder to defend.
Saying goodbye to Destiny 2 is the hardest thing I will ever do in gaming
Saying goodbye to Destiny 2 hurts because I'm not just leaving a game behind, but a version of my life that I can never return to.
Destiny 2's End is a Sony problem, not just a Bungie problem
The important thing here is not just that Sony owns Bungie. It is that the ownership changes that ultimately has to decide Destiny 2 is still worth the kind of investment players expected to receive. Bungie can pitch new ideas, rework its live service model, and try to convince players that there's still life in the franchise, but a studio under Sony's umbrella no longer operates with the same freedom it had before the acquisition.
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This is where the frustration surrounding Bungie really only makes a little bit of sense. Players can blame Bungie for years of questionable decisions, and some of that criticism is entirely fair. Destiny 2 didn't arrive at this point because everything was going perfectly until Sony suddenly stepped in. Still, once the game became part of Sony's portfolio, the biggest questions surrounding its future became Sony questions as well, if not more so. As Bungie's parent company, Sony was the company that backed Bungie's operations and determined how much continued investment the studio's projects were worth. To quote Hopper from An insect's life“First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.”
Sony bought Bungie for Live Service and then backed out when it needed help
Sony's own financial position makes its role in all of this even harder to ignore. The company reportedly reported a $766 million impairment loss against Bungie for FY2025, and a previous impairment charge of approximately $198 million was reportedly linked to Destiny 2 does not match Sony's sales and engagement expectations. Simply put, Sony bought Bungie because they believed Destiny 2 and Bungie's live-services expertise would help justify a much larger live-services future, then had to lower Bungie's value on its books when that future stopped looking as profitable as it initially expected. So, while Bungie's mistake helped Destiny 2 in this position, Sony is the company that seems to have looked at these numbers and decided that the franchise no longer warranted the same level of investment.
That doesn't mean Sony killed Destiny 2 out of defiance, and that doesn't mean Bungie gets away with its own mistakes either. The more realistic version is less dramatic, but probably more accurate. Sony bought Bungie in anticipation Fate and Bungie's live service expertise to carry a certain value, then seems to have re-evaluated that value once Destiny 2 and Marathon no longer met these expectations. In that context, Destiny 2The final update is the visible result of Sony deciding how much more runway Bungie's most important franchise deserves.
Once the game became part of Sony's portfolio, the biggest questions surrounding its future became Sony questions as well, if not more so.
That's why just blaming Bungie misses the bigger picture. Bungie may have added Destiny 2 in a vulnerable position, but Sony is the company that now decides what that vulnerability means. If Destiny 2 end active support, Destiny 3 is reportedly not in development, and Bungie is indeed facing more layoffs, then this is a franchise that measures up to Sony's expectations and is clearly falling short.
Destiny 3 needed future players, but Sony apparently didn't give the green light
Of course, one could say, “If only Bungie had done better with Destiny 2then Sony wouldn't have had to make the unfortunate decision to shut it down,” and maybe, from a certain perspective, that's true. Bungie has made a lot of mistakes over the years, and Destiny 2 didn't stop at its final update by chance. The game struggled with content vaults, onboarding issues, seasonal fatigue, uneven expansions, and a lingering sense that it was becoming harder for anyone outside of the most dedicated players to keep up with it.
At the same time, Sony bought Bungie know-how Destiny 2 was an aging live service game, and that means Sony also bought the responsibility of deciding what its future would look like after the release of The Final Shape. That expansion was the cleanest transition point the franchise would ever have, as it ended the Light and Dark saga and gave Bungie a natural opportunity to move players from one era to another. If Sony really believed Fate was still worth building around, it would have been the time to protect their investment with the green light Destiny 3or at least move Bungie towards a big new one Fate project with a clear future attached to it.
At least, what it would have done is that it would have given Destiny 2 players hope for what was to come, and they likely would have remained engaged with the game despite its faults. After The Final Shape, many players felt it Destiny 2 had reached a point where it should have stopped, but was actually only contextualized by the content that followed. The majority agreed that everything Destiny 2 tried to accomplish after its last major expansion didn't create enough of a future for the live service game, and player numbers dwindled as a result. But had they known Destiny 3 was going on, maybe that content would have been enough to keep them interested, since at least they would have known that the franchise had a larger long-term goal worth investing in.
Sony bought Bungie to know Destiny 2 was an aging live service game, and that means Sony also bought the responsibility of deciding what its future would look like after the release of The Final Shape.
That's what makes the reported shortage of one Destiny 3 green light so important. According to the latest reports, Bungie currently has not Destiny 3 or any other specific new project green for it Destiny 2 team, with the studio instead expected to begin incubating future projects after Destiny 2 will get its last live service content update on June 9, 2026. That doesn't prove that Bungie has formally pitched Destiny 3 and Sony rejected it, but it still means that the next numbered Fate the game was apparently not approved in time to give the franchise a future.
So, yes, Bungie's earlier decisions helped Destiny 2 in this position. Still, Sony had a chance to decide that Fates future was worth fighting for beyond the confines of an aging live service game, and from what is widely known, that is not the choice it made. Destiny 3 might have been the clearest way to convince players of that Fate was still a franchise with a future, rather than a game being preserved after its prime years had already passed. Without that, it's hard to pin the blame on Bungie alone, as the future players needed was ultimately something only Sony had the power to fund.
- Released
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August 28, 2017
- ESRB
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T For TEEN for blood, language and violence
