Sony's $3.6 billion Bungie buyout is officially complete

Sony's $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie has completed, and the studio is now part of the first-party PlayStation studios brand.

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It's official: Bungie is a first-party PlayStation studio. "The agreement to acquire Bungie has closed. So now we can officially say... welcome to the PlayStation family, Bungie!" Sony's PlayStation account said.

Bungie will be one of Sony's most important studios and will help lead PlayStation into a new era of live service games. Sony wants to ship 12 live games by 2025, and Bungie will be instrumental in helping plan these games out; Sony has said it wants to "fully integrate Bungie expertise in all SIE processes," however Bungie will retain full creative freedom in the games it developers and publishes.

Bungie will review design/concepts, monetization & data, pre-production pipelines, and launch readiness/post-launch.

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"We are proud to officially join the incredible team at PlayStation. We are excited for the future of our company, and we are inspired to bring together players from all over the world to form lasting friendships and memories," Bungie said on Facebook.

As part of the deal, Sony is offering a $1.2 billion retention plan for Bungie employees. This part of the buyout was created to ensure as many of Bungie's critical developers stay with the team as possible.

The landmark deal was scrutinized by the Federal Trade Commission, who requested a Second Look in order to determine if the buyout was fair for the digital games market. The buyout deal was announced in January, and completed seven months later.