Former Destiny 2 and Marathon director is suing Sony and Bungie for $200 million over alleged wrongful dismissal

pcgamer.com:

Former Destiny 2 and Marathon game director Christopher Barrett has sued Bungie and Sony over allegations that his former employers «deliberately destroyed» his reputation by falsely claiming that he had engaged in sexual misconduct in the workplace. Barrett says in his suit that the companies engaged in the «brazen scheme» to avoid paying him more than $45 million he was owed under his employment agreement, and to «shift blame for and deflect attention from their massive business failures.»

«This case is about Defendants’ textbook scapegoating of Christopher Barrett, who was, until recently, one of the most respected artists in the videogame industry,» the lawsuit states. «Defendants deliberately destroyed Barrett’s reputation by falsely, and publicly, insinuating they had 'investigated' Barrett and 'found' he had engaged in sexual misconduct.

»Defendants did not care that none of it was true; they had blatant motivations for their brazen scheme: (i) to avoid paying Barrett the nearly $50 million he is owed under his employment agreement, and (ii) to shift blame for and deflect attention away from their massive business failures. And to achieve those corporate objectives, they were willing to sacrifice Barrett."

A long-time Bungie employee with credits going back to Myth 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved, Barrett was highly regarded among Destiny fans and seen as one of the key drivers behind the Forsaken expansion that was widely viewed as righting the Destiny 2 ship when it launched in 2018. In 2023, he was selected to direct Bungie's Marathon reboot, but a year later he was unexpectedly replaced in the role by former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler.

Barrett updated his X profile to indicate he'd become «executive creative director» at Bungie, but a Bloomberg report in August said he'd been fired in April, a month after his replacement as Marathon director, following an investigation into multiple complaints about inappropriate workplace behavior. Multiple sources