Bungie Lay Offs Michael Salvatori

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In addition to the countless others in Bungie's lay off, one that came after promising the Xbox-Activision acquisition went thru it would not happen Bungie also laid off its long time composer Michael Salvatori. 

For those that might not know Michael Salvatori, 

Michael Salvatori has been writing music for video games since 1997. His first game was Bungie’s Myth: The Fallen Lords. Since then he has contributed music to every Bungie release, including Myth 2: Soulblighter, Oni, and the first five Halo games (2001-2010). He has also composed music for Stubbs the Zombie (2005), Hail to the Chimp (2008), and Disney’s Guilty Party (2010).

Michael began writing music for Bungie’s Destiny in 2012, and he continues to this day along with co-writers Skye Lewin, Josh Mosser and Michael Sechrist. These soundtracks have won numerous awards, including ASCAP’s video game soundtrack of the year for Destiny: Rise of Iron in 2016. They are currently working on music for Destiny 2: The Final Shape (working title).

He should've retired in Bungie but ends his time there being laid off. This has me worried about Bungie and where Marathon might go from here without Michael's work. Many will say, this is a time to rejoice and adopt Michael Salvatori back to our Halo family. But I don't think that will happen in the near future even with news that a new Halo game is joining the franchise on Unreal Engine 5.

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I don't remember if I mentioned anywhere else but they also laid off the original type font creator for Halo. The Halo font used now is a little bit different from before during Halo: CE, Halo 2 and Halo 3 but it still has its place in Halo as an iconic art. While the specific details about the font creation process may not be publicly disclosed, but it's known that Bungie had a hand in designing the unique typography for the "Halo" series. 

Her name was Lorraine Mclees. She started at Bungie in 1999. Yes, 1999. She was part of the art team. She designed the Pillar of Autumn and the original Halo logo. In 2020, she was the art lead for Bungie's consumer products team. Here she is (briefly) in the Halo 2 Behind the Scenes documentary. She also voiced the dropship pilot in Halo 1's longest cutscene ("LZ looks clear! I'm bringing us down!").