By Rory Norris
Bungie announced yesterday that Destiny 2 is ending, with its final live service update scheduled for June 9. Its run encompassed 10 expansions, 30 seasons and three episodes across almost a decade. Adding to the disappointment is a report that Bungie is not moving immediately into Destiny 3 and is considering potential layoffs.
Former developers and voice actors have responded by reflecting on the work, friendships and community that shaped the franchise.
Developers remember the world they helped build
Joe Blackburn, game director from 2020 until 2024, departed shortly before The Final Shape. His relationship with Destiny began as a player, before he joined Bungie. In his reflections on X, he described working on its world as an honor he could never fully repay. He credited experiences inside and outside Destiny 2 with helping shape who he is, and thanked the players who made the Tower feel alive.
Former production director Catarina Macedo, whose tenure ran from 2022-2024, expressed similar gratitude. She remains proud to belong to the community and regards even her small contribution to building the game as the greatest honor of her career.
Joseph Cross, Destiny's former lead concept artist who later pioneered Marathon's art direction, revisited the project through an early Pike concept. Cross explained that it was among his first pieces to meaningfully influence the project, recalling how rewarding it felt to contribute. The artwork evokes the anticipation surrounding Destiny before its original launch.
In his post, Cross acknowledged the difficult news while celebrating the game's remarkable run. May 22, 2026
A community built around shared memories
Robert Brookes, a former senior narrative designer now working on Cyberpunk 2, recalled a particularly powerful community response: the mourning that followed the death of Zavala actor and fellow player Lance Reddick in 2023.
Brookes remembered entering the Tower to find crowds of guardians kneeling beside Zavala or saluting him, a scene repeated across servers. He praised the community and expressed hope that players who still feel that connection will return to say goodbye during the game's final days.
Music designer Nadia Wheaton also reflected on the people behind Destiny. Bungie's layoffs in 2023 included composers Michael Salvatori and Michael Sechrist, neither of whom had commented at the time of writing. Wheaton credited their musical colleagues—Skye Lewin, Michael Sechrist, Michael Salvatori, Kory Kruckenberg and Josh Mosser—with teaching them a great deal. They described feeling fortunate to work alongside them and said Bungie had changed their life.
In a subsequent post, Wheaton said the team had fought to uphold its quality standards despite unrealistic constraints. Although their departure from Bungie did not happen as they believed it should have, they remained confident that the team had done its best and grateful to have worked on Destiny 2.
Luke Smith, the former Destiny 2 creative director who left Bungie in 2024, framed the loss around the game's unrealized future. At its strongest, he said, its content generated friendships and memories. The absence of new content hurts because players are losing a place where those experiences happened—and the possibility of more to come. May 22, 2026
Voice actors thank the players
Todd Haberkorn, the voice of the Drifter, saluted Gambit players with a tribute to their banked motes and mugs of Vex Milk. He described taking part in a production of this scale as a rare privilege, thanking both the production team and fans worldwide who had shared their stories and happy memories with him.
His accompanying post extended that thanks across the community and production: developers, writers, artists, musicians, engineers, voice actors, performance-capture performers, dub artists, translators, social-media managers, fan artists and fiction writers, cosplayers, streamers, meme creators and lore enthusiasts. He said there was still more to process. May 22, 2026
Brian Villalobos, who played Lodi in the ill-fated Edge of Fate update, devoted a nearly eight-minute video to his experience. He remembered receiving the offer email on August 6th 2024, two years earlier, and feeling thrilled to join a game that had existed long before his involvement.
Even that excitement, he explained, had not prepared him for the warmth, kindness and welcome he received. Lodi had become a deeply meaningful character to him—perhaps one no future role would surpass—and he spoke fondly of both the character and the story they had begun.
As Destiny 2 nears its end, the outlook for both the franchise and Bungie appears bleak. The responses from those who made it reveal overlapping feelings of gratitude, grief and frustration, emotions shared on both sides of the screen.
