Marathon isn’t going to be the following Harmony, in response to Sony Interactive Leisure’s Studio Enterprise Group CEO Hermen Hulst. In a latest “fireplace chat” with buyers, Hulst admitted that Harmony fell wanting Sony’s expectations, however added that the writer had discovered some worthwhile classes within the wake of the hero shooter’s disastrous August 2024 launch and subsequent cancellation.
After praising the success of Helldivers 2, Hulst conceded that the writer had additionally confronted its justifiable share of challenges in latest months, utilizing Harmony for example, and assuring buyers that Sony has made strikes to make sure that Marathon — the upcoming first-person extraction shooter from Bungie — gained’t face the identical destiny. Hulst additionally praised the work that the now-defunct Firewalk Studios put into Harmony, citing the aggressive nature of the live-service style and advertising points as the principle culprits behind the sport’s failure, which finally led to refunds and the closure of Harmony’s growth studio.
”I feel some actually good work, truly, went into that title, some actually large effort,” Hulst stated of Harmony. “However finally, that title entered right into a hyper-competitive phase of the market. I feel it was insufficiently differentiated to have the ability to resonate with gamers. And so we’ve reviewed our processes in gentle of this to deeply perceive how and why that title failed to satisfy expectations, to make sure we’re not going to make the identical errors once more.”
Hulst defined that new working procedures have been applied at Sony to make sure the writer doesn’t repeat historical past when Marathon launches later this yr.
“We’ve launched way more rigorous processes for validating, for re-validating our artistic, our business, our growth assumptions and hypotheses, and we now try this on a way more ongoing foundation,” Hulst stated. “That’s the plan that may guarantee we’re investing in the precise alternatives on the proper time, all whereas sustaining way more predictable timelines.
“For Marathon, it’s our aim to launch a really daring, very revolutionary, and deeply partaking title. It’s going to be the primary new Bungie title in over a decade. So we’re actually excited for that launch. We’re monitoring, we’re going via the take a look at cycles. We’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle the workforce has simply gone via. We’re taking all the teachings discovered, we’re utilizing the capabilities we’ve constructed — and analytics and person testing — to know how audiences are partaking with the title.”
Hulst admitted that though a few of that person suggestions has been “diversified,” it has additionally been “tremendous helpful” in regard to Marathon’s growth.
“That’s why you do that testing,” Hulst defined to buyers. “The fixed testing, the fixed re-validation of assumptions that we simply talked about, to me is simply so worthwhile to iterate and to continuously enhance the title, so when launch comes, we’re going to provide the title the optimum probability of success.”
A former Firewalk Studios developer additionally appears to agree that Marathon deserves an opportunity.
“I labored on Harmony, and did my greatest,” the developer shared on Reddit. “We got here up brief, please don’t punish others for our errors.”
Relating to Marathon, the nameless dev stated that they “actually didn’t need to be ‘that’ dev, calling consideration to myself as if I’ve a horse on this race,” including, “However to name [Marathon] a failure earlier than it’s even out is wild to me.”
Marathon is about to launch on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X on Sept. 23.
