Former Destiny 2 and Marathon director Christopher Barrett has settled his lawsuit against Sony and Bungie. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Barrett implied a favorable outcome, saying he’s “very satisfied” with it.
Barrett had a long career at Bungie, where he spent nearly 25 years as a designer and director on the Halo and Destiny games. He also served as game director on Marathon before his unexpected departure in 2024; subsequent reports said he was fired following complaints of inappropriate behavior with women at the studio.
Barrett, however, alleged that the real reason for his dismissal was a desire to avoid paying him more than $45 million under the terms of his employment agreement, and to “shift blame for and deflect attention from their massive business failures.” He sued Sony and Bungie for $200 million, alleging that they colluded in a “premeditated scheme to terminate Barrett, avoid paying him the tens of millions of dollars he was owed, and make him a scapegoat for Defendants’ business failures and reputational issues.”
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It initially appeared that Sony was going to fight: Its reply to the lawsuit included multiple examples of written communications between Barrett and female subordinates, which it claimed “reveal his pattern of misconduct.” They included alleged drunk calls, requests to play “sexually charged games of ‘Truth or Dare’,” and comments such as “You want to be worshipped, I think?” Barrett’s lawyers, however, said Sony was misrepresenting the nature of the interactions by cherry-picking text messages and “alleged conversations.”
Sony’s reply included a detailed breakdown of what Barrett earned following Sony’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022, and what was left on his contract when he was terminated: He was paid $36,811,044 in 2022, and $1,883,057 in 2023; he was due to collect another $45,579,627 from 2024-2026, broken down into three payments of $941,529 each for unvested RSUs [restricted stock units] in May and November 2024 and May 2025, and three payments of $14,251,680 each for re-vested shares (including Premium Bonus) in July 2024, July 2025, and July 2026.
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Those staggering sums came about as part of Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie in 2022, $1.2 billion of which went toward talent retention: Essentially, Sony had big plans for Bungie as a multi-game studio in those days, and wanted to ensure key employees like Barrett stuck around for the long haul. But those massive payouts started to look less well-considered following layoffs at the studio through 2023 and 2024, which put hundreds of people out of work. Meanwhile, higher-ups on these retention bonuses were essentially incentivized to stick around thanks to their ‘golden handcuff’ deals.
In a way, this settlement looks like something of a repeat: While numbers weren’t revealed, Barrett seems very happy about it, and even if he ‘only’ got what he claimed he was owed on his contract, that’s still $45 million in his pocket, just a couple weeks after Bungie laid off most of the Destiny development team and some Marathon devs as well.
(Image credit: Christopher Barrett)
In a joint statement shared by Barrett on LinkedIn, Sony and Bungie credited him for contributing to “some of Bungie’s most successful games,” and said they have added his name to the Marathon credits as the original game director.
