Bungie finally gives update on Marathon development

Recent reports have indicated that Marathon may be heading for a delay behind the scenes. Bungie has finally addressed the game's status with an update this week, saying that the game is still on track, but we'll have to wait a bit longer for gameplay.

Marathon director, Joe Ziegler, spoke in a developer update video this week. There are no big reveals to be had, but Ziegler does share some of the journey the game has gone through so far and opens up about some of the areas the game still needs to improve in.

“Where are we at right now in terms of making this game? Well, for the past couple of years, we’ve been doing a lot of aggressive change to the game and we’ve been iterating pretty heavily, and during that time we’ve been testing with a lot of players, a lot of players like yourself, also with creators”, Ziegler says.

“Where the game is at right now, there’s a variety of different things at different states inside of the game. Some things are a little bit more complete, like our environments are starting to come together in a really, really beautiful way. Some of the character models we’ve been iterating through, so they’re coming together but they’re not fully there yet. Our enemy models are still kind of a little bit in an early state, so we’re still iterating through and making those things land in a strong way, and a few of the items are still kind of coming online.”

With all of that in mind, Ziegler says it is “a little early” to show gameplay publicly. However, he also says that the game is “on track”, so it seems the 2025 timeline Bungie is aiming for is still in place.

Ziegler also confirmed plans for extended playtests next year, so perhaps we'll even see a closed beta and eventually, hopefully an open beta too.

Marathon is being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It is currently unknown if Bungie plans to release it with a premium price tag, or if it is aiming for a free-to-play model.

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KitGuru Says: Given Bungie's history with Destiny PvP, Marathon will need to really impress to gain buy-in at a premium price. A certain percentage of Destiny fans will no doubt give it a shot regardless, but I don't think that percentage is particularly high.

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