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.”
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.”