Marathon Director Fired at Bungie After Misconduct Investigation

Chris Barrett was terminated at Bungie earlier in 2024.

By Logan Moore

Bungie has reportedly fired the director behind its upcoming game Marathon. In the first half of 2023, Bungie dropped a teaser trailer for Marathon alongside some initial details on the project. Since then, Bungie itself has been in a tumultuous spot as the company has been hit with two rounds of layoffs in the span of less than a year. Now, further problems at the studio have come about as Marathon's director, Chris Barrett, has been fired for alleged inappropriate behavior. 

As reported by Bloomberg, Barrett was discovered to have been fired at Bungie earlier in 2024. The publication reports that Barrett had been accused by "several" female employees at Bungie of inappropriate conduct. Those within Bungie investigated the matter and found that Barrett had clearly acted in a manner that warranted his termination. Bungie's parent company, Sony, didn't provide a comment on this situation but added that it takes "all complaints of misconduct very seriously."

Barrett had been with Bungie since 1999 and had worked as both an artist and director on the studio's two major franchises: Halo and Destiny. He's said to have also been the director of Marathon, which is the next big shooter that Bungie is currently developing. How Barrett's removal from Bungie impacts the work being done on Marathon isn't clear, but it's yet another negative situation in a long line that has plagued the company over the past year. 

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For now, Marathon itself remains without even a broad launch window, but it is known that the game is being planned for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It's also becoming the main focus of Bungie after the company released Destiny 2: The Final Shape earlier this summer. The Final Shape brought about an end to the larger story that Bungie had told in Destiny 2 over a span of multiple years and is assumed to be the final expansion the title will receive. 

Elsewhere, a part of Bungie was announced earlier this month to be spinning off to work on a new action-focused IP under the PlayStation Studios umbrella. Details of this project are incredibly slim and likely won't emerge for a few more years. 

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