Our Industry Is Imploding: Inside the Game Dev Layoffs at Bungie, Ubisoft, and the Responses From PlayStation and CD Projekt

The video game industry's prolonged post-pandemic contraction shows no signs of easing. In late June 2026, two major studios — Bungie and Ubisoft Barcelona — enacted significant workforce reductions, sparking strikes, public anguish, and a sharp divergence in how top executives and developers are responding.

Here is a sourced, fact-checked breakdown of exactly what happened and what industry leaders are saying.

Bungie's Third Major Layoff Wave (June 2026)

What happened: On June 25, 2026, Sony announced a major reduction at Bungie, its Bellevue-based subsidiary. The cuts affected "most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members," as well as SIE support teams . A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice filed in Washington State confirmed 292 employees were cut from the Bellevue office alone, with a separation date set for July 9, 2026 .

Context: This marks Bungie's third layoff wave since Sony acquired the studio in 2022 for $3.6 billion . The earlier rounds were:

• October 2023: ~100 employees laid off (~8% of staff) .
• July 2024: 220 employees laid off (~17% of staff), with another 155 roles transitioned to Sony .

The June 2026 cuts followed the end of Destiny 2's live-service development; the final content update shipped on June 9, 2026, with no Destiny 3 in active production to absorb the team . The studio is now refocusing around the extraction shooter Marathon and incubation projects .

Ubisoft Barcelona: Restructuring, Strike, and Broader Cuts

The Barcelona cuts: Ubisoft announced a restructuring plan affecting 51 employees at its Barcelona studio — roughly 28% of the local workforce — to refocus the site exclusively on Rainbow Six Siege development . The restructuring specifically targeted the team responsible for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, which was slated for release on July 9 .

The strike: The Barcelona works council, with CGT union representation, called three weeks of partial strikes starting June 24, 2026, with walkouts scheduled for every Tuesday and Thursday between June 30 and July 17 . Workers cited "management's decisions" and job insecurity as the driving grievances . Protester demands included a guarantee of job retention for all 51 specialists and a commitment to protect working conditions .

Broader Ubisoft pressure: The Barcelona cuts are one piece of a much larger cost-cutting drive at Ubisoft. In early June 2026, the publisher announced the closure of studios in Winnipeg and Belgrade and further reductions at Barcelona and its global publishing team, with up to 380 jobs at risk across the company . Reports indicate Ubisoft placed a news embargo on the cuts before many affected employees knew their jobs were gone .

Previous labor actions: French Ubisoft unions staged a historic sector-wide strike in February 2025, and in January 2026, five French unions called a "massive international strike" over layoffs, cancellations, and a mandatory return-to-office policy . In November 2024, unions had also filed a lawsuit over Ubisoft's return-to-office mandate .

CD Projekt RED's Paweł Sasko: "Our Industry Is Imploding"

His response: Paweł Sasko, Associate Game Director on Cyberpunk 2 (Project Orion) at CD Projekt RED, posted on social media: "Some days I feel our industry is imploding. Teams and game projects are getting slaughtered every second day, to the point it's hard to keep up" .

What he did: Sasko contrasted the devastation with CD Projekt RED's position — saying the studio is "blessed to be still hiring" — and directly pointed affected developers toward open roles at CDPR across The Witcher 4, Cyberpunk 2, and the new IP Hadar, across locations in Poland, the US, and Canada . He has also previously urged developers to unionize, saying "collectively we can influence things" .

Notably, CD Projekt RED itself has not been immune to cuts: the studio laid off approximately 100 workers (~9% of its staff) in 2023, citing overstaffing . Those layoffs led directly to the formation of the Polish Gamedev Workers Union by CDPR employees .

Hermen Hulst (PlayStation CEO): Defense as "Necessary Sustainability"

His June 2026 response (Bungie cuts): In an internal email published on Sony's official site on June 25, 2026, Hulst wrote that the Bungie reduction was made "only after extensive discussion and careful consideration," after reviewing the studio's long-term direction and portfolio strategy, and exploring "multiple alternatives" . He said the cuts were necessary "to align the studio's resources with its current priorities and long-term goals" . He offered transition support and said SIE would try to place affected employees across its global studio network .

His earlier stance (2024 PlayStation cuts): After Sony laid off 900 employees across PlayStation studios (including Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Firesprite, and the closure of London Studio) in February 2024, Hulst publicly argued the cuts were necessary for a "sustainable business" . In a May 2024 interview he stated the post-pandemic correction was inevitable, saying during COVID "every single one of us was staying at home playing games" and that the resulting windfall led to overexpansion that could not be sustained . In October 2024 he told Variety: "It's our duty to look at our resource planning and make sure that we run a sustainable business" .

Summary

The June 2026 layoffs at Bungie and Ubisoft Barcelona — and the markedly different responses from Sasko and Hulst — illustrate a gaming industry in profound transition. An estimated 45,000 jobs have been lost across the sector from 2022 to mid-2025 alone . The Bungie cuts mark the effective end of Destiny 2 as a live-service game, while Ubisoft's continued restructuring has met with sustained worker pushback across Europe. The contrast between a prominent developer using his platform to offer jobs and urge unionization, and a top executive framing the same pattern as necessary business discipline, captures the central tension of the current moment.