Destiny 2’s latest expansion, The Final Shape, has reportedly sold fewer copies than its predecessor, Lightfall, despite receiving widespread critical acclaim.
The Final Shape was released nearly two months ago, concluding Destiny’s decade-long Light and Darkness storyline. With the new engaging story campaign, loot, and the new raid, it was considered by critics and players alike to be the best expansion in Destiny’s history.
However, this praise did not translate into higher sales numbers, which were unexpectedly lower than those of the Lightfall expansion. This information comes from Stephen Totilo of GameFile, who cited a former Bungie employee as the source.
Related: Destiny 2 The Final Shape’s Ending Was Significantly Different Pre-Delay, Cut Cinematic Revealed
Sony Overpaid For Bungie, Former Bungie Employees Say
In the latest newsletter (paywalled), one former Bungie employee told GameFile that The Final Shape expansion, despite getting praise from both fans and critics, failed to outperform Lightfall’s launch sales.
“And yet it sold less than Lightfall,” one former Bungie source told Totilo when comparing the launch sales numbers of the two expansions. “The financials just don’t work. Destiny is an incredibly expensive game to make.”
“I think Sony overpaid for Bungie,” one source told Totilo. “I think Bungie sold things they were just not able to deliver.”
According to three former Bungie sources, Bungie’s leaders “overstated their studio’s financial prospects to Sony, and Wednesday’s cuts were needed to stop continued losses that amounted to an ongoing reality check”, said Totilo in the newsletter.
Other sources said that Bungie failed to meet the financial targets it had promised to Sony and has incurred losses since the launch of the Destiny 2 expansion Lightfall in February 2023.
The underwhelming sales of The Final Shape come at a challenging time for Bungie. The company recently laid off 17% of its workforce, a significant reduction that has impacted various departments.
This decision was part of a broader restructuring effort aimed at addressing the studio’s financial difficulties as it plans to deepen its “integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters,” said CEO Pete Parsons in an article released earlier this week.
