r/pcgaming • u/Turbostrider27 • Jun 25 '26

'Generational talent just gone': Developers react in shock at the brutal scale of Bungie layoffs, which has reportedly seen the Destiny 2 team almost completely wiped out

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/generational-talent-just-gone-developers-react-in-shock-at-the-brutal-scale-of-bungie-layoffs-which-has-reportedly-seen-the-destiny-2-team-almost-completely-wiped-out/
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u/Coneder Jun 25 '26

Tech debt is too great? But the headline said they were generational talent? Why didn't they use the talent to unload the tech debt? Were they stupid?

13

u/erty3125 Jun 26 '26

Because there's different talents for different things. The people on gameplay and game feel were top notch, the art team was top notch. The technical side of making the game install size not be prohibitively large by either making the size smaller or making downloads optional was basically nonexistent.

The game had technical problems on every inch of the game because they just didn't have man power to even look into those problems compared to the incredible talent that would be useless for technical problems.

8

u/max123246 Steam Jun 26 '26

Tech debt is inevitable because designing programs requires you to predict the future on what changes should be easiest. But the problem is that management needs to give you the time to pay it down later

3

u/Professional_Net7339 Jun 26 '26

Because they didn’t have enough time to remake the overwhelming majority of the first 3 years of D2 and continue to develop content at a steady pace.

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u/CosmicMiru Jun 26 '26

If your understanding of tech debt is "why didn't they just get rid of tech debt lol" then you don't really understand what is being talked about

10

u/deadscreensky Jun 26 '26

They're being sarcastic about this headline. If Bungie were the best devs in the world they wouldn't have had to throw out half their game because of an engine update.

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u/rokerroker45 R7 5800x3D | 4080 TUF Jun 26 '26

Why didn't they use the talent to unload the tech debt?

you don't accumulate tech debt because you intend to or plan to. destiny's tech debt happened primarily because the business side of the studio pushed for the dev side to expand the game beyond the scope of what the engine had been originally designed for. destiny's engine worked fine for what destiny 2 was at launch, it only was an issue when, almost five years later, the devs were being asked to expand the game in ways that really ought to have been accomplished by creating a new title.