Bungie Ends Destiny 2 Support After 10 Years, Driving Players to Multi-Year High

Q: With AAA costs soaring and Marathon failing, will the massively popular Destiny franchise ever actually return?

Probably not anytime soon, but the franchise is unlikely to be gone forever. Bungie has ended active development on Destiny 2 and has said it is not making Destiny 3 now, largely because the economics no longer work easily. AAA budgets routinely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and Bungie’s own Marathon reportedly cost more than $200 million. In that environment, launching another giant live-service sequel is a far riskier bet than it was when Destiny first took off. That risk is sharper because Marathon has underperformed. Despite decent reviews, its player base fell quickly after launch, and Sony has already taken a major impairment charge tied to Bungie’s declining portfolio. Bungie has also gone through more layoffs, which makes a near-term greenlight for another massive Destiny project even less likely. Still, Destiny is too valuable an IP to dismiss permanently. The final Destiny 2 update drew a huge player spike, showing the audience is still there, and Bungie deliberately left narrative threads open, including teases around the Winnower and the abandoned “Fate Saga.” That looks less like a burial than a pause. The most realistic outlook is that Destiny returns only if Bungie or Sony can justify a cheaper, clearer plan: a smaller-scale sequel, a reboot, or another project in the universe rather than a full traditional Destiny 3. If that happens, it is more likely to be years away—potentially early next decade—than a near-term comeback.

2 articles · Updated · Gizmodo · Jun 13

“Monuments of Triumph” closed out Destiny 2 this week, ending Bungie’s support for the shared-world shooter after nearly a decade and framing the finale as a farewell to key characters and players.
Bungie is shifting resources to Marathon and other incubating projects, with reports indicating a Destiny 3 is not in development because it would be too expensive to make.
The update still teased unfinished future storylines: players quickly found hints that Guardians would eventually have confronted the Winnower, a cosmic foe rooted in Destiny 1 lore.
That sendoff also revived engagement, with news of the update lifting Destiny 2 to its highest player count in months and the launch itself pushing activity to its highest level in years.
The ending leaves Bungie’s live-service future tied largely to Marathon, while fan demand for a new Destiny entry persists despite no clear path to one.