Marathon, the upcoming PlayStation extraction shooter from Halo and Future developer Bungie, is “on monitor” on the studio however too early to showcase but.
Bungie launched a prolonged growth replace video which make clear a few of Marathon’s mechanics but in addition simply how early it’s in growth. Participant character fashions are nonetheless “coming collectively,” for instance, whereas enemy fashions are nonetheless in an “early state.”
It is subsequently “somewhat early to present you all of it as a one piece,” sport director Joe Ziegler stated, although insisted Marathon is development as deliberate. “They are not all collectively, however once they all do come collectively, we actually, actually are trying ahead to displaying you what that appears like, particularly in play,” he stated.
Marathon was revealed in Might 2023 as a reboot of the traditional Bungie franchise, and Ziegler stated it’ll retain its themes of “mysteries, eeriness, and psychological creepiness.”
Questions have been raised surrounding its growth, nevertheless, for myriad vital causes. Bungie itself has encountered a number of controversies in the final yr or so, maybe headlined by the shedding of 220 employees members, that means 17% of its workforce, in July: a transfer even trade friends criticized.
This got here lower than a yr after 100 different lay offs at Bungie, at which level employees informed IGN the environment was “soul crushing” on the studio.
Additional controversy got here when a report launched weeks after the 220 job losses alleged former Marathon director Chris Barrett was fired after an inside misconduct investigation at Bungie. At the least eight girls got here ahead saying Barrett behaved inappropriately towards them.
This all comes as Sony rethinks its deal with stay service video games comparable to Marathon. Sony president Hiroki Totoki stated in November 2023 the corporate was dedicated to launching simply six of the 12 stay service video games it was engaged on by March 2026, in a shift in technique that noticed even The Final of Us multiplayer sport cancelled.
Marathon can even be launching right into a post-Harmony world. This was one other PlayStation stay service shooter that was launched to tragic participant numbers and pulled offline by Sony simply two weeks after launch.
There’s subsequently quite a lot of strain on Marathon to carry out, with not simply the sport itself on the road however maybe Bungie itself.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll speak about The Witcher all day.