Pete Parsons Is Out At Bungie After Studio Turmoil, But Is That Why?

Thursday was a complete chaos in the Destiny world, as the developer rolled out a series of proposed changes to the game that were the most hated by the fanbase in some time. But barely a few hours later, it was announced that the CEO of Bungie, Pete Parsons, was leaving.

In a blog post that was published just minutes after the news was announced to Bungie, Parsons talked about how he was “passing the torch” to former Destiny 2 General Manager Justin Truman, who will now be Bungie’s new “Studio Head.” I have that in quotes for a reason, which I’ll get to later.

First, Parsons. The widespread reaction from the community has been celebration, as Parsons has been painted as something of a villain by Bungie fans for a long while now as the studio has made a series of poor executive decisions and laid off hundreds of developers based on those poor decisions.

However, the narrative that because of the studio’s problems, Parsons was just “forced out” by Sony is almost certainly not the case. It is overwhelmingly likely that this is the result of the Sony deal to purchase Bungie. That purchase saw vested stock deals for executives and Bungie veterans that were up usually in either three years or five years, meaning those with deals could walk away with a big goodbye package of millions or tens of millions after that point in time. If that’s what Parsons just did, that is easily tens of millions. Sony bought Bungie in July of 2022, it is now August 2025, three years and one month after that purchase, and you can do the math.

Elsewhere, from what was said and what I know through sources:

• Again, Justin Truman is now studio head of Bungie. That term “studio head,” you might notice, is not “CEO,” the title that Parsons had. This is on purpose, and is part of Sony’s more firm hand steering Bungie going forward, something they’ve already talked about in recent earnings reports.
• Blake Battle will step up to now be GM of Destiny 2, replacing Truman. Dan McAuliffe is now executive producer of Destiny 2, replacing Battle.
• There are no changes to Tyson Green’s position as Destiny 2 director, nor Joe Ziegler as Marathon director right now. However, Green is likely part of the veteran group who could get a payout after vesting, but I have no information on if or when he plans to leave. Ziegler, a much more recent hire after his time on Valorant, would likely have no such deal.
• Truman is much more well-liked than Parsons internally. Truman has, however, been etched in Destiny players’ minds as the guy who said Bungie shouldn’t “overdeliver” on content, something he even jokes about in his new post. In the context of his larger presentation and the nature of live services, it does actually make sense, but the majority of the community still resents that.

While Parsons is cited as a main reason for Bungie’s problems, he is obviously not the only problem. It’s not clear what might change for Bungie under Truman or Destiny 2 under Battle and Green continuing on. As we just saw in the recent TWAB, there are very, very bad in-game decisions still being made by developers that have nothing to do with Parsons. The same is true for the underwhelming Marathon debut.

We’ll see what happens from here. No, this is not some sort of sweet justice with Parsons being booted out. No, this is not an instant fix for everything that ails Bungie. But hopefully it will help, at least.

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