Former Marathon Director Sues Bungie/Sony Claiming Accusations Were Defamatory And Only Made To Avoid A $45 Million Payout

This past August we reported on allegations against former Marathon director Chris Barrett. The allegations were allegedly coming from multiple women who accused the ex-Bungie employee of various level of sexual misconduct. Now, Bungie didn't drop a full post or statement on the topic, but Sony (Bungie's owners) did tell Bloomberg in response to their initial reporting that they take "all complaints of misconduct very seriously. It is our policy and practice to investigate every complaint promptly and take action based on the findings of our investigation.”

As the shooter had picked up a new director months before this report, it seemed weird to just have it breaking then.

Chris Barrett claims none of this is true and alleges that the Destiny 2 creator is simply trying to get out of a $45 million paycheck owed to him. The suit also accuses the company of "deliberately destroying 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.”

This all comes from a new lawsuit (Credit: VentureBeat) filed by Barrett against Bungie and Sony. It also alleges that the "investigation" completed by the company was a sham and that the statements regarding Barrett's termination provided to Bloomberg were just a ploy to distract from the company's poor performance and to stop a huge payout to Barrett, while pinning the development issues behind Marathon on Barrett, too.

However, Barrett's suit also takes time to pin the sending of sexually suggestive texts on another "senior executive" at the company. Barrett further elaborates in VentureBeat's reporting on other situations involving alcohol and misconduct. This misconduct, according to Barrett, saw the company sacrificing Barrett, in his words wrongly, to pin the company's larger issues on someone high up so they were seen to be "fixing" the "issues."

Barrett denies all the allegations made against him.