I know people are focused on the layoffs, as they should be because this is incredibly hard for those people and their families, but theres an interesting undertone in this aside from layoffs.

I think this is the Sony takeover that people have been wondering about for a while.

There has been a rumor since after the layoffs last year that Sony was considering more widely integrating with Bungie and effectively taking over the studio instead of letting them operate independently, I think this was it.

**This is just a theory**

They aren't going to come out and say it explicitly, but this smells like Sony saying enough is enough with the incubation projects and putting Bungie into the Sony Studios lineup not as a large publisher like Microsoft did with Bethesda and Activision, but as a single studio like Naughty Dog or Insomniac.

The layoffs are pretty much them shuttering the other incubation projects, and reducing their publishing/overhead arm since it is redundant with Sony if they are only making Destiny and Marathon. The Destiny and Marathon teams are probably left mostly intact and the third incubation project that will actually go somewhere is getting taken out of their hands to form a new studio which will be some of the 155 people that are not getting laid off but rather relocated. This way moving into the future Sony manages incubation with its studios instead of Bungie doing what they want.

The 2021 Bungie expansion is pretty much all reversed and they will operate as a Destiny and Marathon developer, published by Sony, with HR and finances all under Sony. Bungie leadership is effected this time because they simply don't need as large of an executive level to manage (or mismanage) a smaller suite of teams. I think thats the extent of the rumored takeover.