Remember Marathon? It's Destiny developer Bungie's next game, and it looks like we're finally about to see more of it.
Marathon is a PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries designed to survive the planet's harsh environments, exploring the lost colony that once inhabited Tau Ceti's surface.
It has been some time since we last saw or heard about Marathon. In October, Bungie released a lengthy development update video that shed light on Marathon's mechanics, but emphasized how early in development the game was. At that point, player character models were still "coming together," while enemy models were in an "early state."
Now, half a year later, it looks like Bungie is ready to reveal what it's been working on. A tweet from the official Marathon account revealed a typically cryptic image accompanied by garbled signal noise. Fans have noticed ASCII art of footage from the debut Marathon trailer. Given Bungie's reputation for mysterious teasers, hidden clues, and Easter eggs, there's likely much more to discover, and fans are already working to uncover its meaning.
Either way, it very much looks like it's finally happening for Marathon after what has been a troubled development.
pic.twitter.com/6NBgIdRVK2
— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) April 4, 2025
Marathon was revealed in May 2023 as a reboot of the classic Bungie franchise, but with themes of "mysteries, eeriness, and psychological creepiness." However, Bungie itself has faced several controversies in recent years, headlined by the layoff of 220 staff members in July 2024, representing 17% of its workforce, a move criticized by industry peers.
This came less than a year after 100 other layoffs at Bungie, at which point staff told IGN the atmosphere was "soul-crushing" at the studio.
Further controversy arose when a report released weeks after the 220 job losses alleged that former Marathon director Chris Barrett was fired after an internal misconduct investigation at Bungie. Barrett subsequently sued Sony Interactive Entertainment and Bungie for more than $200 million.
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This all comes as Sony rethinks its focus on live-service games. Sony president Hiroki Totoki stated in November 2023 that the company was committed to launching just six of the 12 live service games it was working on by March 2026, indicating a shift in strategy that led to the cancellation of The Last of Us multiplayer game.
While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 was a breakout hit, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony's other live service games were either canceled or suffered disastrous launches.
Indeed, Sony's Concord is one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting just a couple of weeks before it was brought offline amid extremely low player numbers. Sony later decided to kill the game entirely and shut down its developer.
Earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, and the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend.
