Former Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert says Bungie was much closer to trouble before Sony bought the studio than many Destiny players may have realized, claiming the 2022 acquisition arrived when the company was near a breaking point.
Writing on X, Ruppert described the Sony deal as an emergency move and said Destiny itself may have been at risk if the acquisition had not happened when it did.
"Bungie was below the red line before the Sony acquisition. If it wasn’t acquired right then, the studio was very close to shutting its doors at the very least on Destiny. It was an emergency acquisition"
The comment reframes a deal that Sony originally presented as a way to expand PlayStation's live-service expertise. In its January 2022 acquisition announcement, Sony said Bungie would continue to operate independently, self-publish and reach players across platforms. The deal was valued at $3.6 billion, including purchase price and committed employee incentives.
Bungie's Sony Era Looks Different In 2026
Ruppert's post comes after a rough run of Bungie news. Destiny 2 has now received its final live-service update, and our recent coverage noted how Monument of Triumph brought lapsed players back to Steam even as the game moved into a very different phase of its life.
That timing gives the shutdown claim sharper context. Destiny 2 is not simply an older live game winding down. It is the franchise that carried Bungie after the studio split from Activision, and it is the same game whose future became central to Sony's live-service push.
Sony's own financial reporting has also made Bungie's situation harder to ignore. In May, IGN reported that Sony recorded a 120.1 billion yen impairment loss, about $765 million, against Bungie assets for the financial year ending March 31, 2026. Sony CFO Lin Tao said Bungie's title portfolio had not reached expectations, while also saying Sony planned to support Marathon with additional content, gameplay improvements and efforts to expand its user base.
Gamers Now has also covered the pressure around Sony's Bungie write-down and a separate report that Bungie weighed a Destiny Infinity relaunch before Destiny 2's live-service support ended. Taken together, Ruppert's comments add another layer to the question Destiny fans keep circling: whether Sony bought Bungie to fuel a bigger future or to stop the studio's flagship game from falling apart sooner.
Bungie has not announced Destiny 3. Marathon is now the studio's main active project, while Destiny 2 remains available on PlayStation, Xbox and PC with its post-live-service structure in place. Ruppert's post does not answer what Sony plans to do next, but it does underline how little of Bungie's internal state was visible when the acquisition was first announced.