Former Marathon Engineer Describes Its Leadership As "Extremely Toxic And Humiliating"

The recent backlash against Bungie and its upcoming first-person shooter Marathon for stealing artwork from a freelance artist makes the game's future development even more vague. The developers tried to end the tragic situation by concluding that it was a behavior from former employees, which is not related to the existing team, and they had no idea how it happened.  

However, it appears that not only is the art pipeline of the project messy, but the engineering department is also suffering under Marathon leadership, according to a former Marathon software engineer named Spirited. 

In a now-deleted post on Bluesky, Spirited opened up about the uncomfortable experiences, saying, "As a former Bungie employee who worked on Marathon, I feel for those still at the studio. Working with engineering / Marathon leadership was extremely toxic and humiliating. I won't speak about the rest, but Bungie leadership needs to be gutted completely." (via The Game Post)

When the engineer left the company a year ago, after the studio fired some employees at the end of 2023, he discussed his reasons in a Twitter post that no longer exists, straightforwardly saying that "their leadership is the worst I've worked with." He added, "Every day was a fight for autonomy and trust. Every day was someone telling me I’m not allowed to speak on any issue or problem in a professional tone."

Those who were let go had no fault, he said, and by continually reducing manpower, the studio "strengthens their reliance on contractors and AI (no joke)."

At this moment, it appears to be even more uncertain regarding the Marathon's launch in September, and the increasing chance of it being a flop contributes to the team's morale being at a historic low. The futures of both the game and the studio don't look bright at all.