In an announcement that is surprising no one, Bungie has announced a Marathon delay, meaning that you will not be seeing their extraction shooter on September 23rd.
In the announcement, Bungie shares that they came to this decision after reviewing the feedback from the Marathon alpha playtest, which had left many users feeling noplussed with the game. The announcement shares three areas of focus that they will be working on (among others):
- Improved survival game play
- Better and more difficult AI encounters
- Better rewards in loot and events
- Improving combat
- Setting and visuals
- Increased visual fidelity
- More environmental storytelling and narrative
- A darker tone like the original Marathon trilogy
- Social Experiences
- Proximity chat
- Better player experience in single and duo play.
This work will be further informed by them continuing to playtest Marathon with users who were in the Alpha. These will be closed playtests, so if you weren’t part of the playtest already, you shouldn’t expect a chance to hop into Marathon anytime soon.
The announcement doesn’t state when they are going to release Marathon now, but given that Sony had been recently touting it as releasing inside the fiscal 2025 year, it seems likely to be releasing during the first three months of 2026 if they can. Bungie states that they will be announcing the new release date and revealing the changes they’ve made over the summer sometime this Fall, perhaps even on the previous release date of September 23rd.
This isn’t the first delay for Marathon as Bungie attempts to nail down this new format and get a live service formula for it that they believe can work. Given the high profile failure of Concord last year, which was followed by cancellations of many first party ‘games as a service’ type projects at Sony Interactive, Marathonis being counted on to demonstrate that Sony can make something in this field. Unusually this has to be shown to investors who want the money from a live service game, and gamers who may hesistate following how quickly Sony pulled the plug on their last attempt in the area.
On the bright side, the extra time should make sure that there’s no plagiarized art in the next version of Marathon right Bungie?
