Former Destiny 2 Lead Says Bungie Was The “Most Toxic, Dysfunctional” Workplace Of His Career

Former Destiny 2 lead Michael Zenke says Bungie was the “most toxic, dysfunctional” workplace of his career as devs reflect on the end of the game.

Destiny 2 has officially reached the end of its live service road. Bungie released Monument of Triumph as the game’s final major live service content update, closing the book on nearly a decade of ongoing expansions, seasons, raids, quests, balance changes, and community events. The game is still playable, but active development has now wrapped.

The final update also brought a huge chunk of players back. Destiny 2 climbed past 167,000 concurrent players on Steam around the launch of Monument of Triumph. For a game that had spent much of the year far lower than that, it was a clear sign that many players wanted to return for one last major sendoff and maybe show Sony that there’s still a dedicated playerbase for the game it just “shuttered” the development of.

Now, some of the people who helped build Destiny 2 are also looking back on what it was like to work on the game.

Former Destiny 2 Devs Reflect On Bungie’s Workplace Culture

In a new feature from Aftermath, several former Destiny 2 developers talked about the work they were most proud of during their time on the game. The article includes plenty of fond memories, from Cayde-6’s Ace of Spades quest to The Final Shape’s Pale Heart and hidden Zavala audio logs.

But the feature also includes some blunt comments about Bungie’s internal culture. One of the strongest comments came from Michael Zenke, who worked at Bungie as a writer and lead narrative designer from 2015 to 2017.

Zenke praised the people he worked with on Destiny 2, especially the writers and developers who helped build the game’s Strikes and characters. He mentioned characters like Devrim Kay, Failsafe, Sloane, and Asher Mir as examples of the team getting to explore different parts of Destiny’s world outside of the usual Vanguard trio.

“My favorite things I contributed to, partially by proxy, were definitely the strikes and the amazing characters in the open world content,” Zenke said. “I got to work with the incredible likes of Zee, Jonathan To, Jill Scharr, and Grant Roberts to get that work out the door.

“The strikes were a hoot, mostly because nobody cared much about the VO, so we were able to really create some incredible and sometimes iterative/different experiences. (‘Operation Babydog,’ as an example, if you remember that. Which I’m pretty sure was a late-evening collab between Jon and Grant.)”

But while Zenke had kind words for the team itself, he was much harsher about the workplace.

“Working at Bungie was the most toxic, dysfunctional experience of my professional life. But the incredible people that I got the chance to work with were some of the best in the world at what they do, and I consider all of them friends to this day.”

The timing also makes these comments hit harder. Destiny 2’s live development has ended, and reports have claimed Bungie could face major layoffs this summer, with some claims suggesting up to 50% of the studio’s workforce could be affected. Bungie and Sony have not officially confirmed that figure, so it should be treated as a report for now.

Still, it paints a rough picture. Destiny 2 ended with a major player return, a lot of love from fans, and emotional stories from the devs who made it. But behind that legacy, some of those same developers are now talking openly about a studio culture they say was deeply flawed.

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