Marathon
Bungie
At 1 PM ET today, Bungie will launch a lengthy Marathon reveal stream that will be the first official look at gameplay of its coming hero/extraction shooter. To date, we got one trailer over a year ago, some concept art and some ARGs (the stream has also been live for 20 hours already, showing MIDA messages and some map and weapon previews).
I will dip into meme territory here with the good old “make or break” declaration but I’m…actually pretty serious this time around. Marathon is a massively important game for both the future of Bungie and the live-service ambitions for PlayStation. The situation:
Bungie
Bungie has been in a tough spot for a while now, effectively half the size it used to be a few years ago after layoffs, voluntary departures and parts of the company carved off by Sony after its acquisition. Right now, Bungie is two games, Destiny 2 and Marathon.
Destiny 2, in just a few months, is headed into an entirely new era of content, less content, from everything we know. We are switching from one big expansion, four seasons/3 episodes, a raid and two dungeons to two smaller expansions, four “major updates” and one raid and dungeon. The quality of the content is yet to be seen, but it is less, and the plan is to maintain this cadence for years, with no indication Destiny 3 is coming in the next half-decade, the one thing that could spark a resurgence in the playerbase.
Destiny has been entirety of Bungie’s published work the last decade, but now Marathon will arrive and be a significant part of that going forward. If the game is not a hit of at least some size, that will deal a huge blow to Bungie, one it may not survive. But in contrast, a successful launch may secure Bungie’s fortunes well into the future even if Destiny remains scaled back. Its history of stellar shooters puts the odds in its favor, certainly.
Marathon
Bungie
Sony
“Break” may be a bit overstating it here, as Marathon doesn’t have the potential to sink the entire PlayStation brand. However, Marathon is currently the biggest live service game arriving in Sony’s roster after cancelled projects, one epic disaster (you know which game) and only one truly major hit, Helldivers 2, which as settled into a cadence of about 10% of its playerbase since it launch in in February of 2024 (still, I’d consider it a success).
Marathon is the first new Bungie IP in a decade, a company with a history of producing shooter-based hits. Again, if Marathon does not land and becomes another also-ran, it’s hard not to see that as a deep cut to Sony’s stated plan of developing loads of live service games. That has already been damaged the last two years or so, but Marathon failing? That would set them incredibly far back.
Concord
Sony
Again, in contrast, Marathon being a hit would be huge for Sony, proving they can in fact dig up live hits and their $3.6 billion purchase of Bungie is bearing new fruit, and it was a good investment. It would shift the narrative away from its last high profile bomb (Concord, and there is a zero percent chance Marathon will be another Concord) and into what could be the best new shooter on the market. Albeit a very, very competitive market to break into in the days of eternal staples like Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex and so on. And if it is a hit, it’s also on Xbox meaning Sony’s reach would extend to its rival to farm purchase and microtransaction cash from that playerbase as well.
There’s no way around it, this is a hugely important game for both entities, and I don’t think I’m overstating it. The buzz around Marathon in the lead-up to its reveal here is largely positive, essentially the opposite of Concord which looked bad from the start. Marathon, at least in terms of its art direction, score and lore, has seemed excellent. Hopefully that is in fact true.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
