Bungie CEO Pete Parsons is leaving the studio after more than two decades with the company. Parsons, who led Bungie through the launch of Destiny 2 and its expansion packs, the Sony acquisition and subsequent reorganization, said now is the perfect time for a “fresh start” and announced that Justin Truman will take over as the company’s new studio head. Truman is Bungie’s chief development officer and serves as general manager of Destiny 2.
Pete Parsons resigns as Bungie CEO
Parsons announced the news in a blog post on Bungie’s website on Thursday, saying Truman is the right person to lead the studio moving forward.
“After over two decades of helping build this incredible studio, build the Bungie Foundation, and grow an inspiring community around our work, I’ve decided to pass the torch.
“This journey has been the honor of a lifetime. I’m deeply proud of the world we’ve built together, the millions of players who play it, and most importantly, I’m honored to have the opportunity to work with the incredible talent at Bungie.”
Parsons is a Bungie veteran, joining the studio in 2002 and serving as executive producer on the Halo game.
“When I was asked to lead Bungie in 2015, my goal was to grow us into a studio capable of creating and sustaining iconic, cross-generational entertainment,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together: we started a bold new chapter for Destiny, built an enviable independent live operations organization with the ability to create and publish our own games, and joined the incredible Sony Interactive Entertainment family.”
Incoming CEO Truman has been a developer at Bungie for 15 years, working on Destiny and Destiny 2. He also participated in the marathon development work of the Bungie team. The new studio head said he is committed to supporting and working with Bungie employees to create online worlds for players to experience.
“We’re hard at work on that right now – both Marathon and Destiny,” Truman said in the post. “We’re hard at work right now, but we’ll have more to show you in both areas later this year.”
Bungie marathon postponed indefinitely
Photo credit: Bungie
Bungie Chaos
Bungie’s leadership changes come after a tumultuous period. The studio has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and undergone major restructuring over the past few years. Last year, Bungie announced it would lay off 220 employees and make structural changes to cut costs. In a July 2024 blog post titled “A New Path for Bungie,” Parsons claimed that the company needed to make “substantial changes” to its cost structure and focus its development efforts “entirely on Destiny and Marathon.”
In addition, Bungie has deepened its integration with Sony, with the PlayStation parent company integrating 155 Bungie positions into Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). Bungie and Sony also announced the formation of a new studio within PlayStation Studios that will work on an as-yet-unannounced action game set in a new science-fantasy universe.
In June of this year, Bungie postponed Marathon indefinitely from its original release date of September 23 due to plagiarism controversy and poor response to the closed alpha game.
Sony, which acquired Bungie in 2022 for $3.7 billion, also appears to have lost confidence in the studio’s ability to operate without oversight. During its first-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call this month, the PlayStation parent company said Bungie’s independence was “waning” and that the studio was moving toward becoming part of PlayStation Studios following a restructuring.