Bungie's Marathon Finally Emerges From the Shadows to Tease… Something

Remember Marathon? It’s Destiny developer Bungie’s adjacent game, and it looks similar we’re astir to yet spot much of it.

Marathon is simply a PvP-focused extraction shooter acceptable connected the mysterious satellite of Tau Ceti IV. Players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who person been designed to past the planet’s harsh environments, exploring the mislaid colony that erstwhile inhabited Tau Ceti’s surface.

It has been immoderate clip since we saw oregon heard of Marathon. In October, Bungie released a lengthy improvement update video that shed airy connected Marathon's mechanics, but stressed however aboriginal successful improvement the crippled was. Player quality models were, astatine that point, inactive "coming together," portion force models were inactive successful an "early state."

Now, though, fractional a twelvemonth later, it looks similar Bungie is yet acceptable to uncover what it’s been moving on. A tweet from the authoritative Marathon account, below, revealed a typically cryptic representation and accompanying garbled awesome noise. As fans person noticed, there’s ASCII creation of footage from the debut Marathon trailer. Given this is Bungie we’re talking about, a developer known for its mysterious teasers, hidden clues, and Easter eggs, there’s astir apt overmuch much present to discover, and fans are already moving to find retired what it each means.

Either way, it precise overmuch looks similar it’s yet happening for Marathon aft what has been a troubled development.

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Marathon was revealed successful May 2023 arsenic a reboot of the classical Bungie franchise, but with each its themes of "mysteries, eeriness, and intelligence creepiness." But Bungie itself has suffered respective controversies successful caller years, headlined by the laying disconnected of 220 unit members, meaning 17% of its workforce, successful July 2024: a determination adjacent manufacture peers criticized.

This came little than a twelvemonth aft 100 different layoffs astatine Bungie, astatine which constituent unit told IGN the ambiance was "soul crushing" astatine the studio.

Further contention came erstwhile a study released weeks aft the 220 occupation losses alleging erstwhile Marathon manager Chris Barrett was fired aft an interior misconduct probe astatine Bungie. Barrett subsequently sued Sony Interactive Entertainment and Bungie for much than $200 million.

This each comes arsenic Sony rethinks its absorption connected live-service games. Sony president Hiroki Totoki said successful November 2023 the institution was committed to launching conscionable six of the 12 unrecorded work games it was moving connected by March 2026, successful a displacement successful strategy that saw The Last of Us multiplayer crippled cancelled.

While Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 was a breakout hit, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios crippled of each clip with 12 cardinal copies sold successful conscionable 12 weeks, Sony’s different unrecorded work games were either canceled oregon suffered disastrous launches.

Indeed, Sony’s Concord is 1 of the biggest video crippled disasters successful PlayStation history, lasting conscionable a mates of weeks earlier it was brought offline amid eye-wateringly debased subordinate numbers. Sony aboriginal decided to termination the crippled wholly and unopen its developer.

And earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled 2 unannounced unrecorded work games, 1 a God of War rubric successful improvement astatine Bluepoint, the different successful the works astatine Days Gone developer Bend.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].