Bungie reportedly fired former Marathon director after misconduct allegations by female staff

Bungie fired its former Marathon game director after multiple allegations of misconduct by female staff, according to a new report.

Earlier this year former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler announced that he had taken over as Marathon game director, amidst reports that former game director Christopher Barrett had left the company.

A new Bloomberg report now claims that Barrett was fired by Bungie after being accused of inappropriate behaviour.

Barrett – who had previously worked as an artist, art director and game director on the Halo and Destiny games – was assigned as game director on Marathon before leaving the company in March, as per previous reports.

However, Bloomberg’s sources now claim that the reason for Barrett’s departure was a termination following an internal investigation, in which at least eight female employees raised complaints that he had behaved inappropriately towards them.

According to the report, Barrett was said to have told lower-level female employees they were attractive, asked them to play Truth or Dare, and suggested that he could help them to advance their careers because of his wealth and power in the studio.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Barrett said of his two and a half decades at Bungie: “I feel that I have always conducted myself with integrity and been respectful and supportive of my colleagues, many of whom I consider my closest friends.

“I never understood my communications to be unwanted and I would have never thought they could possibly have made anyone feel uncomfortable. If anyone ever felt that way about their interaction with me, I am truly sorry.”

Bungie’s parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment did not give a comment on the specific case but said it took “all complaints of misconduct very seriously”.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier (the author of today’s new report) claimed the mood at Bungie regarding Marathon is “not great”.

“There’s a reason that it was planned for this year and slipped a whole year, and people that I’ve talked to are a little pessimistic about it even hitting its current planned deadline,” Schreier said. “But we’ll see. I don’t know exactly when that is, sometime in 2025, I’m not sure.”

He added: “Yeah, the sentiment, I’ve heard, is not great around it, at least of a few months ago.”