Greater than a yr after saying sci-fi extraction shooter Marathon, developer Bungie revealed a smattering of latest particulars about its subsequent recreation on Monday, together with a peek at two character lessons and affirmation of deliberate playtests coming in 2025. The most recent replace on Marathon was atypical of Bungie’s type — as an alternative of a slickly produced “ViDoc,” because the developer likes to name them, the brand new video is a no-frills, talk-to-the-camera data dump from recreation director Joe Zeigler. In some methods, it scans like a proof-of-life video from the beleaguered developer of Future.
After Bungie introduced Marathon in Could 2023, it mentioned it deliberate to go “darkish to give attention to the sport” and pledged to indicate gameplay the following time it talked about its extraction shooter. Zeigler acknowledged that pledge, saying the studio isn’t prepared to indicate gameplay simply but. As a substitute, Zeigler pitches the idea of Marathon as an “intense” extraction shooter the place gamers combat over loot, then attempt to survive and escape with their haul. The developer additionally confirmed two kinds of Runners — Marathon’s cybernetic mercenaries — with the Thief and Stealth varieties.
Whereas exhibiting idea artwork for the Thief, Zeigler mentioned, “For those who discover the character creepily peeking across the nook in that quiet second earlier than she makes her transfer — that is kind of just like the theme of that character in plenty of methods, and may offer you a touch as to what sort of gameplay that character goes to be driving from. There’s plenty of hilarious tales that come from [the Thief] but additionally very, very loopy moments that this character contributes to the sport.”
Referring to the Stealth Runner, Zeigler mentioned that it’ll use deception as a utility trait. “They’re actually onerous to pin down,” he mentioned, “and you may see that they’ve the instruments to stalk the battlefield and present up in ways in which permit them to form of take benefit.”
In discussing the state of Marathon, Zeigler mentioned that Bungie is “on observe” and has been “doing plenty of aggressive modifications to the sport” based mostly on early testing with gamers and content material creators. “There’s so many individuals who’ve contributed by telling us, ‘Hey, this factor sucks’ or ‘This factor is nice’ in a manner that basically has helped us diagnose, analyze, and form and shift the sport in nice methods,” he mentioned.
Gamers might be able to get their palms on Marathon someday in 2025, when Bungie will begin increasing its playtests “wider and wider,” Zeigler mentioned. That doesn’t essentially imply that Marathon will launch in 2025, but it surely seems like Bungie is getting nearer to each exhibiting gameplay and letting a bigger pool of gamers begin going hands-on with its follow-up to Future 2.
Zeigler, who was previously the sport director of Riot Video games’ shooter Valorant, introduced in March that he’d taken over as recreation director for Marathon. He changed Bungie veteran Christopher Barrett, who Bloomberg reported had been fired for misconduct.
Marathon shall be launched on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X.
