Bungie claims Marathon is ‘on track’, but it’s not yet ready to show gameplay

Bungie has provided a development update on Marathon, its upcoming sci-fi PvP extraction shooter.

Game director Joe Ziegler discussed the current state of the project in a nine-minute YouTube video released on Monday, which is viewable below.

Following Marathon’s announcement in May 2023, Bungie said it would be “going dark to focus on the game… and when we come back – we’ll have gameplay to show”.

Ziegler said in today’s update that Bungie isn’t ready to reveal Marathon gameplay yet. However, he claimed that development is “on track”, shared some new concept art, and teased plans to expand playtesting in 2025.

While a launch window for the game has never been announced by publisher Sony, Bungie was reportedly targeting a 2024 release prior to a delay.

Ziegler said in today’s video: “Where are we at right now in terms of making this game? Well, for the past couple of years, we’ve been doing a lot of aggressive change to the game and we’ve been iterating pretty heavily, and during that time we’ve been testing with a lot of players, a lot of players like yourself, also with creators.

“And so it’s sort of insanely awesome, and I’m filled with gratitude when I think about it, because there’s so many people who’ve just contributed by telling us, ‘hey, this thing sucks’ or ‘this thing is great’. In a way that really has helped us diagnose, analyse, and shape and shift the game in great ways.

“Where the game is at right now, there’s a variety of different things at different states inside of the game. Some things are a little bit more complete, like our environments are starting to come together in a really, really beautiful way. Some of the character models we’ve been iterating through, so they’re coming together but they’re not fully there yet. Our enemy models are still kind of a little bit in an early state, so we’re still iterating through and making those things land in a strong way, and a few of the items are still kind of coming online.

“So, it’s a little early to show you all of it as one piece, but as you’ve noticed, like as many of you are familiar with, if you’ve been or if you’re familiar with game development, all of these things are on track. They’re not all together, but when they all do come together, we really, really are looking forward to showing you what that looks like, especially in play.”

Marathon sees players embody cybernetic mercenaries known as Runners. Working solo or as part of three-person crews, they fight for survival and loot in a lost colony on a mysterious planet called Tau Ceti IV.

Ziegler went on to reveal concept art for two Runners, codenamed Thief (top) and Stealth (below).

“Hopefully it’s just a little bit of a taste, an amuse-bouche, if you will, of content that we have before we reveal a lot more for you in sort of the midst of 2025,” he said.

“Speaking of 2025 as well, like we said before, we’ve been really iterating with our players and so in 2025, we’re going to be expanding our playtests a little bit wider and wider.

“We’re looking to add a significant amount of players to each of our milestones as we’re going forward and some of these big inflections are opportunities for you all to join us.

“We’ll definitely let you know when that happens but if you are interested in following us or learning more, or sort of keeping up to date with all the updates that we have, definitely one of the ways you can do that is to wishlist us on the storefronts that exist, whether it be Steam on Xbox or on PSN. All of them have wishlist buttons.”

In an accompanying post on X, Bungie said that Marathon will be released for Xbox Series X/S alongside the PS5 and PC versions of the game, but that Xbox wishlisting is not yet available.

Bungie and Sony are reportedly considering a $40 price tag for Marathon.

Further reading

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The sentiment around Marathon at Bungie is ‘not great’, it’s claimed

Some staff are reportedly "pessmistic about it hitting its current deadline"

Former Valorant game director Ziegler announced in March that he had taken over as Marathon game director, amidst reports that former game director Christopher Barrett had left the company.

It was recently claimed that Barrett was fired by Bungie after being accused of inappropriate behaviour.