Marathon game director Joe Ziegler leaves Bungie in latest shake-up

Destiny developer Bungie continues to have a tough year. After launching the long-delayed Marathon in March, and struggling to find a wide audience for the game, the studio announced it was ending development on Destiny 2. Shortly after, Sony announced it was laying off “a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members.” In the latest shake-up at the studio, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler announced Friday that he left Bungie.

Ziegler said in a statement on X that he was “passing the torch of Game Director to the very capable and amazing hands of Del Chafe III, who will guide the game forward alongside the Creative Director Julia Nardin.”

Chafe is a 15-year veteran of Bungie. He worked on Destiny and Destiny 2, and served as creative director and assistant game director on Marathon. Nardin has been at Bungie since 2019, and she served as narrative lead and narrative director before assuming the creative director role on Marathon.

“Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future,” Ziegler said. “I’m proud of them and I’m excited to see them helm the future of this crazy little world we’ve created together. As for me, I’ll be heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon.”

Prior to joining Bungie, Ziegler was the game director of Riot Games’ shooter Valorant. He announced in March 2024 that he’d taken over as game director for Marathon, replacing Bungie veteran Christopher Barrett, who had reportedly been fired for misconduct. Barrett later sued Bungie and Sony for $200 million, alleging that the companies fired him to avoid paying him $45 million and to “shift blame for and deflect attention from their massive business failures.” Sony and Barrett recently settled the lawsuit for undisclosed terms.

Marathon is currently in the midst of its second season, Nightfall. Bungie announced Thursday that it will release a new mode called Vault Breaker, an experimental roguelite PvE experience, that will run in Marathon from July 21 through Aug. 4. Marathon‘s full PvE mode is slated to launch in season 3.

Since launching in March, Marathon has struggled to match the highs of Bungie’s Destiny and Destiny 2. The sci-fi extraction shooter peaked at 77,358 players on Steam in March, and has dwindled to 12,041 peak players in the last 30 days, according to Steam Charts. Destiny 2 recently peaked with 167,867 players on Steam, as Guardians returned to the shared-world shooter to commemorate the end of content development.

In May, Sony said that earnings from Bungie’s catalog did not reach the company’s expectations. Sony recorded an 88.6 billion yen impairment loss against Bungie, which it bought in 2022 for $3.6 billion. Despite Sony’s disappointment with Bungie’s output, Sony chief financial officer Lin Tao said that the company will continue to invest in the game.

“Player reception to Marathon is strong, with the game receiving a Metacritic score of 82 and more than 90% of the player reviews on Steam being positive. Engagement metrics such as retention also remain at a high level,” Tao said in May. “Going forward, we aim to improve the performance of the game by working to retain highly engaged core users through the introduction of additional content, further improvements in the gameplay experience, and expansion of the user base.”

In his outgoing message, Ziegler thanked fans for supporting Marathon “in our windy mission to bring a dark and terrifying space survival frontier to your screen. The mission will continue in new and surprising ways so stay tuned for what this team has in store for you!”