One of the biggest and most upsetting recent developments in the gaming industry was the sudden and shocking end of Destiny 2, with developer Bungie announcing its conclusion in May before delivering one last content update, Monument of Triumph, in early June. Despite players pushing to keep the series alive, publisher Sony ultimately ended support for Destiny 2 (though it remains playable) and laid off "most of the Destiny team" soon after.
The downfall of a franchise as massive and prominent as Destiny — reportedly caused by poor leadership and financial troubles — was a bombshell to many, including Rebecca Ford, the creative director of Warframe. Digital Extremes' 2013 live-service sci-fi action RPG, one of Destiny 2's biggest rivals, has now outlasted it...but Ford isn't celebrating.
On the contrary, she views the end of Destiny 2, and the way it ended, to be deeply concerning: "It's horrible news, because it shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark," she told GamesRadar+ during an interview at TennoCon 2026.
"Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you're in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it...that's not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you, and it is existentially threatening at every level, because the idea that we aren't in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day," she continued.
While this isn't something that private, independent studios have to worry about, these kinds of shutdowns, layoffs, and closures are undoubtedly things that developers operating under a publisher's wing have come to fear more and more in recent years.
One only has to look at last week's events at Xbox for a glaring example of why; Microsoft's gaming brand began a series of 3,200 ongoing layoffs, with 1,600 workers immediately let go and another 1,600 set to be cut over the course of 12 months. Four studios are being divested from Xbox Game Studios as well, and that number could rise to five depending on how negotiations about Arkane Lyon with the French government shake out.
As a result of what Xbox calls a "reset" for an operation that's "not healthy," over half of DOOM dev id Software and over 200 devs at The Elder Scrolls Online maker ZeniMax Online Studios have been discharged, with numerous other teams across Xbox also affected. Bethesda workers fear The Elder Scrolls 6 will be delayed and that Fallout 76 support may not continue, while its union fights back with a Save Our Devs protest this week.
The cuts at Xbox and Bungie are merely the latest in a devastating series of industry layoffs that have continued to pile up since 2022, initiated by overinvestment into gaming during the pandemic and worsened by the impact of tariffs, the hardware crisis, and other socioeconomic factors.
In an era where publishers dismissing thousands of devs and canceling or shutting down projects has become disturbingly routine, Ford is right to see what's happened with Destiny and Bungie as a grim reminder of the current state of the industry. We can only hope that a light at the end of the tunnel isn't too far away.
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