Former Bungie chief legal officer says Destiny 2’s live-service end shows the studio is becoming what he “feared” after Sony acquisition, “a publishing imprint,” not a “builder of worlds”: “I wish I could have done more to keep it alive”

Former Bungie CLO Don McGowan reacts to Destiny 2’s live-service end, saying Bungie is becoming what he feared after Sony’s acquisition.

Bungie’s announcement that Destiny 2 is ending live-service development has hit the community hard. The studio confirmed that the game’s final live-service content update, Monument of Triumph, will arrive on June 9, 2026, after which Destiny 2 will remain playable but will no longer continue as an actively developed live-service game.

Since then, a lot of former and current Bungie developers have been speaking out, while players are also calling on Sony to keep Destiny alive. Some fans have even started a petition asking Sony to make Destiny 3, with the petition reportedly passing 50,000 signatures in under a day.

Now, former Bungie Chief Legal Officer Don McGowan has shared his own reaction to the news.

Former Bungie legal chief reacts to Destiny 2’s live-service ending

In a post on LinkedIn, McGowan said his feelings about the news are “unexpectedly ambiguous.” He made it clear he is “not happy” to see what has happened to Bungie, and said the studio is becoming what he feared it would become after Sony acquired it for $3.6 billion.

His main point is that Bungie no longer feels like the studio that built huge worlds like Halo and Destiny. In his view, it is becoming more like a publishing label that may release a game from time to time, instead of a studio known for creating living worlds that people stay with for years.

“I’m not happy to see what has become of one of the most famous studios in gaming, and I wish I could have done more to keep it alive,” McGowan said.

Here is McGowan’s full statement:

“For those who know my feelings about recent Bungie and its management, and my time there, my feelings about this news might be unexpectedly ambiguous. I’m not happy to see what has become of one of the most famous studios in gaming, and I wish I could have done more to keep it alive. It’s now becoming what I feared after the Sony acquisition: a publishing imprint that may also make a game every now and then, but not a builder of worlds. Life goes on, but we can spare ourselves a moment to wish sometimes it didn’t.

“I was never a huge fan of D2. I’m not a great fan of FPS gaming, and I found the lore needlessly complex and never properly explained for new players. But not everything is for everyone. For a lot of people, D2 was their life. It helped a lot of people get through COVID lockdowns. And, of course, it changed the games industry in hundreds of ways that echo today and on into the future.

“So even if I won’t see them starside, I feel for the folks who are losing something that meant a lot to them. Now, on a more LI note, I really hope this doesn’t mean a few thousand people lose their jobs…”

This is not the first time McGowan has criticized Bungie. In an interview with IATSE over a year ago, he said there were around 1,600 people at Bungie when he was there, and added that, “if I was temperamentally inclined, 10 of them were real f***ing problems.”

McGowan served as Bungie’s chief legal officer and general counsel from May 2020 to November 2023.

His latest comments also come as reports claim Bungie is planning a significant number of layoffs after the June 9 update, while Destiny 3 is not in active development. Reports have also said Bungie does not currently have a greenlit project ready for the Destiny 2 team, though staff are said to be pitching and prototyping new ideas.

For Destiny fans, it is a rough moment. The game is not being shut down, but the live-service era that defined it for almost a decade is coming to an end.

What do you think about McGowan’s comments and Bungie’s future? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!