Marathon Dev Hits Back At Ship Of Theseus Dig Pointing Out All The Bungie Old Heads Who Still Work There

Players have rightfully become skeptical whenever a studio touts that one of its projects is from the makers of several other popular and critically acclaimed franchises. That was a point YouTuber Larry Bundy Jr recently tried to make ButcherMiller,about Bungie, claiming it was disingenuous for the studio to say that Marathon comes from the developers of Halo. It proved to be an example of both missing the point and getting something entirely wrong.

“I despise companies putting ‘From the makers of…’ when trying to pitch a new game,” Larry Bundy Jr wrote on X over the weekend. “People make games, not a company. Like Marathon boasting ‘From the makers of Halo and Destiny…’ I doubt anyone who worked on Halo is still there. This is the Ship of Thesis [sic] in another form.”

But several people responded by pointing out that, actually, quite a few older Bungie heads are still at the studio. “damn I’ll have to tell this to Chris Butcher and Jason Jones and Tom Gioconda and Dave Gasca and Mat Noguchi and Bob Glessner and Lars Bakken and Tyson Green and Dan Miller and Shi Kai Wang and Eric Elton and Steve Cotton and Sam Jones and Mark Uyeda and and James Haywood…” wrote back Marathon UI designer and fontslop curator Elliott Gray.

“I doubt” you can just check for yourself lmao
Chris butcher, Lars Bakken, Dan miller just to name a few all worked on halo and on marathon pic.twitter.com/zpmJn0NyEA

— Just_Ascill 🤷🏾‍♂️ (@Just_A_Scill) March 15, 2026

He went on to name dozens of veterans who have stayed with Bungie across multiple franchises, adding that those were just the ones he could recall off the top of his head for a random post on X. Others chimed in as well to point out that, whatever people’s beefs with Marathon, it was unfair to lay them at the feet of an imagined Bungie that was completely divorced from the studio’s legacy.

“In addition to Elliott’s truth nuke below, there’s a lack of appreciation in the OP’s post for cultural and technology legacies,” wrote Mark Noseworthy, who joined Bungie in 2009 as an engineering producer on Halo: Reach and left in 2024 as VP on Destiny. “People pass those down, piece by piece, as new people join and others leave a company.”

He continued, “It’s one of the reasons the feel of Bungie games have remained strong for 25 years (even while the gameplay team members have changed multiple times). The Ship of Theseus is a good metaphor because it is BOTH the original ship and the NEW one at the same time. Not a dunk at all.”

A studio is more than the sum of its headcount. That’s the point of building institutions: so that values and visions can extend beyond any one group of people. It’s also true that the total of a studio’s LinkedIn history and past game credits is never a guarantee that the next thing those people make together will be a slam dunk. Studios make good games. Studios make bad games. Good developers at good studios can go on to make bad studios that make bad games.

Game development, like sports franchises, is way messier than names on a sheet. But also, anyone trying to weaponize Bungie’s past as a cudgel to beat up on Marathon is an idiot.