Bungie announced that Marathon, the Destiny studio’s next big video game, has been delayed and will no longer be launching in September. The company gave no new release date but promised to add features and make several changes that players requested after Marathon’s alpha test earlier this year.
On June 17, Bungie’s Marathon development team confirmed that the sci-fi FPS would not launch on September 23, citing feedback it received from the alpha. Many players found that alpha to be underwhelming, hard to play solo, lacking the tension seen in other extraction shooters, and not feeling like a part of the existing Marathon franchise that Bungie created back in the 1990s.
“Through every comment and real-time conversation on social media and Discord, your voice has been strong and clear,” said Bungie in a post on its website. “We’ve taken this to heart, and we know we need more time to craft Marathon into the game that truly reflects your passion. After much discussion within our Dev team, we’ve made the decision to delay the September 23rd release.”
Kotaku has contacted Sony and Bungie about the delay.
In the post on Bungie’s official site, the dev team says it has a few key areas it is focusing on immediately, including making NPC enemies more “challenging and engaging” and improving Marathon’s “visual fidelity.” The team also plans to add proximity chat, a highly requested feature that exists in most other popular extraction shooters but wasn’t going to be included in Marathon.
Here’s everything Bungie says it is focusing on as it works to improve Marathon based on feedback from fans:
- 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
Marathon has had a rough few months
In 2023, Bungie and parent company PlayStation revealed Marathon with a flashy and really cool-looking trailer. Since then, the game has gone through a rocky development process and changed a lot, evolving into a more round-based hero shooter with extraction elements.
In April, Bungie ran a big alpha test for Marathon, letting a bunch of people get their hands on the upcoming FPS. The alpha didn’t go over incredibly well. Many extraction players felt like it lacked the tension found in other games in the genre, like Escape From Tarkov. Visually, the game looked pretty plain and boring outside of its lavishly detailed interiors. Maps felt small. Gunplay against NPCs was fun, but often too easy. Loot wasn’t great. Playing solo wasn’t much fun. Worst of all, it felt like a lot of this wouldn’t be fixed or improved on in the six months before Marathon’s planned September launch.
Then, in May, things got worse for Bungie when an artist provided ample evidence that some of Marathon’s artwork, design, and imagery had been ripped directly from their own work without permission, credit, or compensation. Bungie later confirmed the game contained the artist’s work and blamed it on a former employee. It vowed to do a full check of all art in the game and didn’t share any new gameplay or trailers.
Last week, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst said during an interview that he was excited about Marathon launching “this fiscal year.” Notably, Hulst didn’t say September. As spotted by Kotaku’s own Ethan Gach, this seemed to be the first hint that Marathon would get delayed. Now it’s official. Marathon isn’t launching in three months. It might not even launch this year. We’ll find out one way or the other when Bungie reveals the troubled shooter’s new release date this fall.