Yes, but those people don't steer the ship.

In fairness, the ones steering the ship are the ones that have been at Bungie for over 20 years now, Lol. Pete Parsons (CEO), has been with Bungie since 2002, Jason Jones (CVO) was a co-founder of Bungie alongside Alex and is still there. Alex founded Bungie but left a long time ago in 2004 so doesn't really apply to this scenario of Bungie losing all their veterans in recent history.

People saying "Bungie lost all their veteran talent" are kind of missing the point, it is their veteran talent currently dragging them down and this is nothing new, Bungie's management issues have existed since Halo days, the only difference between then and now is that Halo was beloved and so people conveniently ignored all their issues, Destiny 2 is more mixed lately and Marathon is being dragged hard so people are finally recognising Bungie's management issues, but again, absolutely nothing new.

There's whole articles about how awful Halo's development was, Destiny also had issues, especially with the engine being a bag of shite. Not to say veterans aren't worth anything but in Bungie's case, veterans are the issue. Now I wouldn't be opposed to some Bungie veterans coming back to take over, like Joseph Staten, but he might not want to after all his work on Destiny 1 was cut which resulted in him leaving.

I think people put way too much stock in veterans though, all studios in the industry will eventually lose all their veterans, we all age, Lol. Doesn't mean every studio in the industry is going to collapse, because that old talent will be replaced by new talent, as has happened since the start of the industry. Some veteran talent are still good, some are quite frankly washed up and haven't produced anything of note in years, it can't be a broad brush of "all veterans = good" or "no veteran talent = studio has no talent" and people can often join a studio because they're a fan of their work, a fan of the studio, they work under the veteran talent of the studio, they care just as much about the studio, then they become the new veterans.

Either way, Bungie is still a huge name, so VAMatt is correct, saying "they're only Bungie in name. The people who made the OG Halo trilogy are gone." is not going to be relevant to the vast majority of people because the vast majority of people pay absolutely zero attention to who is or isn't still at a studio and quite frankly, it's only really the gaming industry where this much attention is paid to who still remains at a company. But yeah, the Bungie name alone will guarantee a decent amount of interest.

Won't help post-launch success if it's mid though.

They do still make brilliant gameplay, I wasn't a major fan of Destiny but can't deny the gunplay is peak, I refuse to get into Destiny 2 at this stage due to all the vaulting nonsense, it wouldn't be impossible to make me interested in a Destiny 3. It's leadership decisions dragging Destiny 2 down and Bungie down from everything we've seen. Destiny 2 is still popular though like I've mentioned, consistently Top Played on Xbox and PlayStation, Top 12 by Revenue on Steam for the whole of 2024, it is still very popular, but decisions elsewhere in the studio are hurting Destiny 2.

And I don't say any of what I say because I want to see Bungie fail, it's quite the complete opposite, I still care about Bungie even if their games don't really interest me lately, I'm not interested in Destiny 2 but it clearly has an audience, it's just not for me. Marathon...I think that goes beyond not being for me, I don't think it's going to be for many people. I say what I say because I want to see Bungie succeed and continue doing great things and I think the #1 issue with Bungie right now is their leadership and that's why I want to see them gone.

It's not about hating on Bungie or anything, Bungie was my childhood favourite studio and I hate to see long-standing studios collapse when it's avoidable, I think Bungie leadership will drag them down, but based on speculation in Bungie, the leadership are all going to abandon the studio in mid-2026 which just makes things even more fucked Tbh because it's starting to look like they're just rushing Marathon out of the door to get their bonuses then they're going to jump out and leave someone else to clean up the mess.

Yes, and that's exactly why I bring it up whenever the discussion breaks out. It may only be a single person here or there, but if only one person each time becomes more educated because of something I said, I'm content. After all, most of what I now know is thanks to fellow forums members along the way (followed up with my own research, of course lol), so it's my way of giving back, I suppose.

It won't do jack for the general public, of course, but then... not much will.

What do you mean by Steer the Ship? If you mean at a executive level(which your terminology implies) then that simply isn't true.

The CEO and Chairman is Pete Parsons who's been there since Halo 2. The Chief Creative Officer is Jason Jones who was a studio founder and credited as co-creator of Marathon, Halo and Destiny.

At the creative level there's a lot of old employees too. The original Director for the reboot was Chris Barrett who was at the studio since 1999. He got fired though, for being a creep.

The executive level(and some old employees) are the people that are considered problematic though. The problem is definitely not being unable to make good gameplay. 

 The game has been delayed indefinitely.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/06/17/bungie-has-delayed-marathon-indefinitely/

Also according to Paul Tassi, the Bungie development team found out about the delay the same time we did what a humiliating feeling that must be.

Bungie management is really bringing the studio down.

But no, Marathon isn't in trouble according to some posters here in the thread. *sigh*

I don't know how good or bad it is, but you had to be blind to think everything was all right. The delay confirms it. Even with a lot of backlash in the loud parts of the internet, a game can be successful (look no further than Hogwarts Legacy). So no, management wouldn't delay off of unjustified internet rumours. They delayed because there is something that the rumours are based on, something that hinders a possible success. What this exactly is can be discussed endlessly, I am in the camp that management stifled creative freedom (something Brouchard the director of Clair Obscur talked about by saying at Ubisoft it would've taken 25 years to get the game made).