Veteran online game voice actor Elias Toufexis has spoken out in regards to the on-line “hate” directed at Marathon, following developer Bungie’s choice to prioritize the sport over Future 2.
Talking to PC Gamer earlier than final week’s shock information that Future 2 assist will likely be fully wound down, Toufexis — who voices Marathon’s Murderer — acknowledged the notion amongst followers that Future 2 had suffered so Bungie’s extraction shooter may dwell.
“I perceive Bungie made a sport, Future 2, that individuals beloved, and then they form of have been like, ‘We’re gonna put that on maintain and we’re gonna work on Marathon,'” Toufexis stated. “Folks obtained upset about that. Cool, do not play Marathon. That is nice, communicate along with your pockets, that is nice.”
Nevertheless, Toufexis continued by saying he disagreed with these whose critiques of Bungie and Marathon had flip into hate, unfold by social media accounts posting fixed damaging content material.
“Life is so brief, man. Just cease tweeting memes beneath issues for six hours,” Toufexis stated. “Critique the sport? Critique my work? Completely acceptable. However there’s those who go on Twitter and put up memes: ‘That is Harmony 2, that is Harmony 2.’ Why are you spending hours doing this… How do you hope one thing fails?”
Right here, Toufexis is after all referencing the high-profile PlayStation live-service shooter flop Harmony that Sony launched in 2024 and scrapped inside a matter of weeks. There isn’t any suggestion that the identical destiny will meet Marathon within the close to future — and certainly, Bungie’s choice to deal with it slightly than Future 2 and start growing PVE content material suggests the sport has its medium-term destiny secured, even when issues over layoffs and the studio’s general future nonetheless linger.
Maybe greatest generally known as the voice of Deus Ex protagonist Adam Jensen, Toufexis has voiced dozens of online game roles over time, and held a few minor roles in Star Trek: Discovery. As with Discovery, Toufexis stated that among the backlash directed at Marathon had accused the sport of being “DEI/woke” — one thing he additionally pushed again on.
“I used to be engaged on Marathon yesterday, and I used to be like, ‘Guys, inform me to cease participating on X,’ as a result of I preserve participating and I actually should not,'” he stated. “I noticed some man, I do not need to get into specifics, however they’re identical to, ‘I hope Bungie fails due to the woke leftist ideology.’ And I am like, ‘I am working with 4 white guys and two white girls. I do not perceive this. The place are you getting this?’
“Folks simply need to hate,” he concluded. “I do not actually perceive it. It is unhappy greater than something.”
Because the mud settles on final week’s bombshell information for Future 2 followers, the franchise’s group has begun bidding their farewells to the franchise, as phrase surfaces that the “overwhelming majority” of Bungie employees have been reportedly unaware of plans to discontinue Future 2 assist till the studio’s announcement was made public.
Within the days since, followers have taken to the Marathon Steam web page to make their frustrations clear by leaving damaging opinions, whilst others have begun combating these opinions by means of a optimistic countercampaign. And, after all, there’s an a web-based petition calling on Sony to greenlight the event of Future 3 — which now has greater than 200,000 responses. Alas, there is no signal of a future for Future but within the works.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You’ll be able to attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social