Marathon Game Director Joins Bungie's Mass Exodus, by Choice or Otherwise
Ziegler said he is handing Marathon to new leaders as Bungie faces layoffs, restructuring and a sharp player decline after March’s launch.
- On Friday, July 17, 2026, Bungie Game Director Joe Ziegler announced his departure, passing leadership of the extraction shooter Marathon to Del Chafe III and Creative Director Julia Nardin.
- Ziegler's exit follows mass layoffs at Bungie that cut nearly 40 percent of its workforce in June, as the studio struggled to maintain momentum following Marathon's March launch.
- Chafe, a 15-year veteran of the studio, and Nardin will lead Marathon forward, while Ziegler, formerly the game director of Riot Games' shooter Valorant, stated he is "heading to something new, somewhere else."
- Bungie will release an experimental roguelite PvE mode called Vault Breaker in Marathon from July 21 through Aug. 4, as the game struggles to match Destiny 2's historical player highs.
- Despite Sony recording an 88.6 billion yen impairment loss on its $3.6 billion Bungie acquisition, the company remains committed to Marathon despite disappointment with the studio's output.
20 Articles
20 Articles
Marathon game director says goodbye to Bungie
Destiny developer Bungie continues to have a tough year. After launching the long-delayedMarathon 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 plans to lay 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 ann…
Marathon game director joins Bungie's mass exodus, by choice or otherwise
Marathon game director Joe Ziegler announced today that he will be leaving Bungie, with today being his last day at the studio. The news comes less than a month after the studio lost approximately half its workforce and shuttered development on Destiny 2. Ziegler will be succeeded by Del Chafe III, along with creative director Julia Nardin, who will both be taking over to try and salvage what’s left of the Marathon dream. Image via Bungie “Both …
Marathon’s Crisis Deepens as Its Game Director Leaves Bungie
Bungie’s extraction shooter has suffered another serious setback following weak player numbers and layoffs. The outlook for Marathon is becoming increasingly troubling. Over the past week, the game repeatedly peaked at barely 5,000 concurrent players on Steam, a figure that looks inadequate for sustaining an ambitious live-service project. Bungie has already responded to the poor performance with major layoffs, and now the leadership of the ga…
A month after mass layoffs at Bungie, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler is leaving the studio
Another regular day in Marathon Land. Following on from mass layoffs at Bungie after the final major update for Destiny 2, and ahead of next week's mid-season 2 Marathon patch, the extraction shooter's game director Joe Ziegler has announced that he's left the studio, with Del Chafe III taking over his role. Chafe, up until this point, has served as Marathon's assistant game director.
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