Bungie has announced that its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, has been delayed indefinitely from its original September 23 release date.
This delay comes after mixed responses to the gameplay reveal and Alpha playtests that happened earlier this year. Having taken in all the feedback from players and fans, the team saw an opportunity to “to calibrate and focus the game on what will make it uniquely compelling—survival under pressure, mystery and lore around every corner, raid-like endgame challenges, and Bungie’s genre-defining FPS combat.”
Some of the specific aspects of Marathon that Bungie intends to work on are as follows:
- Upping the Survival Game
- More challenging and engaging AI encounters
- More rewarding runs, with new types of loot and dynamic events
- Making combat more tense and strategic
- Doubling down on the Marathon Universe
- Increased visual fidelity
- More narrative and environmental storytelling to discover and interact with
- A darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy
- Adding more social experiences
- A better player experience for solo/duos
- Prox chat, so social stories can come to life
Bungie intends to stay quiet in the coming months as the team works on improving Marathon, with plans to update us on its progress and announce a new release date later this fall.
When Bungie first revealed gameplay for Marathon, I was one of the more optimistic voices online, however, I did have my own set of concerns. As time passed by and I thought about the game some more, I began to think a delay would be in the game’s best interest so that it would launch in a better state. Ever since it was revealed that Bungie had stolen art from an artist named Antireal for use in the game, a delay (or worse, cancelation) has simply been a foregone conclusion. While we don’t know the length of Marathon‘s delay, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst recently said in a business update that the game is planned to release “this fiscal year.” That means it would release no later than February 2026. An extra five months of development can certainly help, but I’m not sure how big of a difference it will really make.
TheComfySpot 