Destiny maker Bungie is developing Marathon, a PvP extraction shooter that will be released in 2023. The studio has now provided an update on the game, saying development is “on track.” However, Bungie didn’t reveal any marathon gameplay, instead choosing to share concept art images of the shooter and provide sparse details about development.
Marathon Developer Update
In a developer update video posted to YouTube on Monday, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler broke Bungie’s silence on the sci-fi extraction shooter. Ziegler shared a development update on the game in a video and said Bungie isn’t ready to show off gameplay yet. But the game director said that every aspect of development is “on track.”
“We’ve made a lot of positive changes to the game over the past few years, and we’ve been doing a lot of iterations. During that time, we’ve been testing with a lot of players,” Ziegler said.
“The way the game is right now, we have all kinds of different things in different states within the game. Some things are more complete, like our environments are starting to come together in a really, really beautiful way. We’ve been iterating on some of the character models, so they’re coming together, but they’re not quite there yet. Our enemy models are still in an early state,” he added.
The developer said that while it’s too early to show players gameplay, “development on all of these things is on track.”
“They don’t all come together. But when they do come together, we’re really looking forward to showing you what that’s like, especially during a game,” Ziegler said.
Hello everyone! We made a “little” video where I talked about what we do as a marathon team and what we’ve been doing in the dark. This isn’t a gameplay reveal or anything, but if you’re interested in staying up to date, check it out below.
A lot♥ pic.twitter.com/WaHgCADed3
— Ziegler (@Ziegler_Dev) October 28, 2024
new concept art
In a developer update video, Bungie also shared some new concept art images from Marathon. The first screenshot is of the “runner” in the game, codenamed “Thief”, while the second is a screenshot of another character, codenamed “Stealth”, a runner who focuses on stealth gameplay.
Bungie said it will announce more game content in 2025, when they also plan to expand the Marathon game test. “As we move forward, we hope to add a significant number of players at each milestone,” Ziegler said.
Destiny developers haven’t provided any updates in 17 months since Marathon was announced as a trailer at the PlayStation Showcase in May 2023. Prior to Monday’s update, the last release of the Marathon X controller was on May 27, 2023, when the game was first released. “Now we’re off to Dark to focus on the game… and when we come back – we’ll show off the gameplay!” the post said.
In August, Bungie announced it would lay off 220 employees and restructure the studio and its operations as part of cost-cutting measures. Studio CEO Pete Parsons claimed at the time that the company needed to make “substantial changes” to its cost structure and “focus development efforts solely on Destiny and Marathon.”
Marathon doesn’t have a release date yet, but the game is wishlisted on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox storefronts.
