New Marathon Video: What Was That?

[@gnarwhalgaming]

"Here is our character named stealth. They go sneak and be stealthy. They use their stealthy abilities to be stealthy. Sneaky" that's the video.

[@Movel0]

This is Stealthana. She got my back. I suggest not getting sneaked up from behind by her, her stealth skills are said to make her quite stealthy, like sneaking across the lawn.

[@neonnoir7172]

@@Movel0respect to the reference of Suicide Squad terrible script

[@thatonepenguinperson618]

The best stealth character in my gaming experience is still the Stealth Suit MkII from Fallout NV. Reading sneaky like that reminded me of her

[@RobbieB2606]

Guy acted like a Sony Exec was stood off camera with a gun pointed at his head. Awful presentation

[@martyk656]

That's pretty much what it was. Not likely an actual gun. Maybe a sword? ;)

[@Marcanine]

Ziegler may be a talented guy in his role but he demonstrated no charisma talking about Marathon. didn’t even look as though he had practiced the presentation. If anything at all, it seemed like he just wanted to let people know who he is since Barrett was let go in shame and disgrace.

[@GrandSekiza]

Not having any gameplay a year out is wild to me. It doesn't even need to be finished but to have nothing to show???? This is doomed.

[@hiredn00bs]

chicken little

[@atomic_wait]

I guess we could see it as them taking the time to make sure the game is fun before investing too much in final assets. The more time you dump into final maps, UI, character models, etc the harder it is to make big changes down the road. Hopefully what this really means is that they're taking a lot of time to test a whole lot of prototypes before committing to the best model.

[@fawkyou2001]

@@atomic_wait yea but thats the kind of shit you do in preproduction, not active development of your supposed year away from release final product

[@Movel0]

Remember this game was originally scheduled for 2024. I understand there were significant changes at the top and they didn't receive much positive feedback to inspire confidence but someone has tested the game so far so there should be at least something playable to show off, right?

[@LastAustralianGamer]

Showing shit unpolished game play is worse then not showing anything. We don't need another concord and that's still fresh in everyone's minds, even an average gameplay trailer would so damaging to this game with the sentiment from the fans at the moment. They are probably shit scared to show stuff to after concords response.

[@GeremyG]

I cannot see Marathon coming out in 2025 at this rate.

[@The90sDoug]

Feb 2026

[@Muppet-kz2nc]

Ya that drop was not a good look.

[@robbay8610]

Bungie can say bye to the rights for their own company

[@DollarStoreGuardian]

They don’t care. Just like extraction shooters haven’t been popular in 5 years. Bungie don’t care.

[@jauari6776]

Paul, you look like minecraft steve

[@Everrrrr]

Bro, stop lmao 😂😂😂

[@Piqcked]

HE ... is StEEEEve.

[@jermainegrays]

Maybe the fact that he spent so long explaining what an extraction shooter is indicates the target audience.

[@RandysThrowingKnife]

Exactly. Spends roughly 3/8 mins telling us something we already know/ could look up a shorter and better definition.

[@ToxixGames]

I took it more as official confirmation of what the game is and is not. Everything we've heard about the game is leaks/rumors.

[@phoenix9531]

Imagine if Vanilla Destiny had been advertised with a 10 minute video of a guy jump cutting every 20 seconds explaining that you'll be shooting with guns in Destiny, but sometimes you'll also have to reload or wait for your health to replenish and then reveal that one of the enemies is called "Knight". That's it.

[@m72758.]

Frankly, I don’t think Marathon will meet Sony’s expectations in terms of revenue, nor will it resonate with the average player anytime soon. The problem is that, in my opinion, Bungie started developing Marathon when extraction shooters were trending, but now I don’t see that genre as being as popular anymore. The competition with Tarkov only worsens things, as Bungie will be competing in a genre that hasn’t been thriving lately. That’s just my feeling, tho, hope to be proven wrong

[@schillingspree49]

What’s weird is that this feels extremely underbaked for how many years ago that they started developing this thing. Since 2014 they’ve been struggling so hard to ship boxed games. The studio realignment mentioned in the infamous GDC over delivery presentation moving away from boxed games has doomed them.

[@dmedford5]

If the gameplay is good i think people will still play it. The images looks cool but we need to SEE it.

[@LifeWulf]

My eyes glazed over during that “explanation”. I didn’t even bother finishing the video. I already don’t care about Marathon, now I *really* don’t care 😂

[@Piqcked]

> 2025 > Marathon does bad. > Destiny Rising does good because mobile gaming and good IP. > Bungie/Sony management realising they sat on a gold mine the whole time but due to incompetence and poor management, it's too late. > Destiny 3 gets announced.

[@EchoDoctrine]

I would add: > Destiny Rising has higher player counts than Destiny 2 > Datto, Saltagreepo & Aztecross start demanding Destiny Rising be designed MORE for them with harder content after they have ruined destiny 2 > NetEase listens to streamers and changes Destiny Rising to be more for the streamers, game crashes and loses players & is taken offline Lol. 😂 Hopefully not those last 2

[@Bill-e-Goat]

That is actually really scary. The one thing bungie was good at was marketing if they can’t even market this game oh my God…..

[@Lady_Amelia-Eloise]

I don’t think Sony is gonna let them delay it till 2026 honestly, I think at this point Sony is probably gonna force them to release the game despite whatever state it’s in

[@atomic_wait]

Honestly this game might benefit from a relatively unfinished early access release, even a paid early access. Concord showed the risks of waiting until the last minute to get public feedback on your huge investment.

[@Dryvlyne]

This video was a PR disaster. I've never heard a Creative Director sound so unconvinced of what they were pitching. This did absolutely nothing to generate positive sentiment or hype. Also, forget the fact that they have to nail the gameplay... How are they going to monetize the game? Because I can tell you right now it doesn't matter how great the gameplay loop is if the monetization strategy is overly aggressive then it will almost surely fail on that alone.

[@joshuaroman6479]

Dude had no chemistry either. Couldn't stop saying "um" and rambling. I'm not a public speaking expert, but it seemed like he was very ill-prepared to present.

[@Dryvlyne]

@@joshuaroman6479 exactly! Bungie has done videos like this before. He doesn't need to be a professional speaker, but the PR team did not do their job by polishing this up a lot. Normally there would be multiple takes, edits and other people from the team speaking. This was just an unforced error on their part. If there's really that little to say then just don't say anything at all.

[@Sketch_MGetch]

Exactly, just didn’t inspire any confidence as the director of the damn game

[@CicadaOne999]

I said the same thing, exactly - this feels like they laid off all the coms people who'd have prepped, coached, convinced him to even practice before recording. Saying 'it's not for everyone but hopefully it sounds good to you' in the first 2 minutes is wild

[@McNasty43]

My hope is that they have some sort of residual/royalty deal with NetEase that'll bring in a steady and substantial cashflow from Destiny Rising so that Marathon doesn't have to be overly monetized. The only reason D2 is in the state it's in right now when it comes to microtransactions is because it's literally Bungie's ONLY source of revenue. If the NetEase licensing deal was a one-and-done $100 million, then yeah, Marathon's monetization is probably gonna be just as bad as D2.

[@PLBiohazard]

Now I'm picturing a Destiny 3 video in 2030 explaining what a looter shooter is

[@schillingspree49]

The Bungie journey from 2010 excellence to whatever they are now is fascinating

[@MuuToo]

"Hey guys, remember Marathon exists! No? Well now ya do!"

[@deadclicks]

Something interesting about the video was the hint that Bungie knows extraction shooters aren’t popular but are doubling down on it anyway

[@fissilepear7805]

Probably why they shifted to it also being a hero shooter. Monetization in extraction shooters has been historically very scummy so that combined with extraction shooters being a niche likely led Bungie to shifting more towards a hero shooter model so they can monetize their game like overwatch 2 does and have a safety net for players going in unlike most extraction shooters

[@glutenguardian]

Indie dev here, heard the wishlist note and wanted to clarify things on the Steam end. Wish-listing is used for promotional and sales notifications relating to marketing your game as well as a useful internal metric to help track interest. A free game can be wishlisted the exact same as easily as a paid one, so it doesn't indicate anything related to the price of the game if there is one. As for the video itself - while it wasn't as informational as many would've hoped, it is likely being used as a gauge of how much buzz they can generate as well as how big of an audience there is actively paying attention to what they release related to Marathon. It could also just be a way to check in and attach a public face to the game and its progress. Either way, the game is ready when it's ready. It'll be interesting to see if a marketing push starts happening soon, or if they keep comms quiet for awhile longer.

[@Squiddy12]

“When we come back, we’ll have gameplay to share” Comes back, with no gameplay to share. Love the modern gaming industry.

[@scottbyers9258]

Whatever the opposite of hype is that what that update did. This video probably caused more skepticism and concern than it fixed. Not to mention it felt like a hostage video with Sony off camera with a gun.

[@martyk656]

The last guy that did a hostage video like this is no longer with Bungie.

[@mattlangford2077]

The “clarification” that runners are TOTALLY not hero’s is such BS it hurts man. They are hero’s in all but name. This is going to be an apex legends extraction game. Prepare to pay for skins, and have no other customization for your runners (totally not hero’s).

[@liquidrufus]

Oh yeah. Starting to think they've pulled a D1 and D2 and rebooted the game a year to year and a half out.

[@Dodgemasta]

It felt like a “silent delay”

[@Sketch_MGetch]

This was absolutely the wrong move. Insulting even. After draining destinys content for years and laying off bungies staff for this ?! For the director to nervously ramble for 10 minutes about the games CONCEPT Also, Heroes?! Give me a break

[@RedShadowOfSaturn]

Here's a note to remember...when devs are busy selling you a game, but explaining a genre's basic tenets as selling points, that's a massive red flag. I default to Godfall as a perfect example. Look at some of the old promo videos that came out about that, where the devs or CMs were like "it's a looter slasher where you go around and knock out enemies for new loot, and you then equip that gear to get stronger more powerfully." As if people don't understand what a looter is and what people tend to play them for.

[@linkfain1]

They picked the worst guy to hype the game. Even being a director it sounded like he didn't even want to play it 🤣

[@Muppet-kz2nc]

Right? "hey guys, this game may or may not work but checkout this cool concept art."

[@SpottedHares]

So open betas in 2025 so a release maybe in 2026... 2 years after the game was supposed to be out and 6 years after the Extraction shooter hit this sort of max interest.

[@Augors]

My question is: what was the state of the game when Barrett was still game director? Cause it sounds like under Barrett leadership things weren’t moving fast enough or wasn’t getting there? It’s kind crazy that there’s a big overhaul to the game this late.

[@Charles-we3bn]

Julia Nardin is doing narrative for Marathon? Great, can’t wait to learn all about the PG-13 rated family trauma motivating each runner to collect loot and have every mystery overexplained in the style of Disney-era Star Wars and Marvel.

[@manman-fq4zw]

screenshotting this for when it inevitably happens

[@schillingspree49]

“Show don’t tell” storytelling methods have been virtually lost on Bungie since 2014

[@iponce2]

@@schillingspree49 did you play d1? it was "show in a very vague manner and never tell anything." I ain't saying show dont tell is better, and and I agree that bungie hasn't been doing that lately, but thats a d2 thing. so nah it hasnt been since 2014. been since 2017 at the earliest.

[@simplecircuit]

That video was SO painful to watch. Why was it cut up like that? Every quote felt like it was stripped from a Q&A with just a random person in the office. Bungie has always done a great job ramping up the hype train, but I truly believe they would have been better off without putting that mess of a video out.

[@velar25]

After what happened with Concond, and the turmoil between Sony and Bungie, Marathon current status is concerning. Oh well, worst case scenario, is another wake up call for Sony to stop their live service pursuit.

[@bob_obba]

They wanted to say that the game has been rebooted multiple times over the last two years and that it’s delaying until (at least) 2026 without actually saying it

[@EliteBlackSash]

It looked like Sony said, “You’ve gotta start promoting this game, or we’re going to cancel it.”

[@JemearlSmith]

Point of the video? "Hey guys! Marathon is still a thing!" They're trying to keep it on people's radar.

[@waaaluigi]

This Marathon video gives me the same vibes that we got one bunch of release that state of the game video, then had to explain themselves later

[@arisenpai]

Social media got me so rage induced that I had to read that title as: What was THAT!?

[@eliwipf8104]

If halo infinite had an extraction shooter it would be so sick, like all that “open world@ they built for the campaign could have been used for maps

[@roberthesser6402]

The original Marathon trilogy was probably the first time deep, intricate storytelling was brought to the FPS medium, with great lore, fantastic characters, and even an interest in exploring philosophical ideas that you only really see in games like System Shock and Bioshock. The third game is a downright psychological horror game. Ziegler saying they were going to lean heavily into that aspect of the universe has me excited.

[@justincampbell1213]

We are seeing in real time what happens when games change direction mid swing…you end up with this Frankenstein forced mess..sometimes it works, more often it doesn’t

[@ragnarokncc3137]

It felt like they did this because they knew they needed to say SOMETHING but they knew they couldn’t SHOW anything.

[@RandysThrowingKnife]

There’s a point where the guy talks about how great the game or gameplay is, but looks down and away from the camera. Classic body language telling us he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying.

[@iponce2]

I think thats assuming malice too quickly. Nervous people tend to look a lot like lairs, and being on camera generally makes people nervous. I wont be playing this game regardless of who they have advertising it, so it doesnt matter to me either way, but the body language suggests more than just "he's lying to us."

[@MrOZ-tf6zi]

I’m def a PvP main that grew up with Halo. I cry when I think about the potential D2 PvP never lived up to. Keeping my hopes up for PvP focused Bungie shooter

[@Bill-e-Goat]

How long have they been working on this game?

[@joelledbetter2926]

Fortnight came out and gaming execs collectively shat themselves "i need me one of those"

[@AdisonTeixeira]

It was PUBG, not Fortnite

[@inakilukac]

The director talked about how they're only now getting to the late stages of implementing the enemies and other things. As someone who knows a fair bit about game development, this seems strange. Like, why are they implementing and finishing assets as important as PvE enemies this late? the game is like a year (or less than 2 years) away from coming out and this is a big production that needs a lot of polish. More importantly it's BEEN in development for god knows how long. I know Bungie always had a reputation for having extremely long PRE-production stages on their games. But this is on a whole new level. for comparison, Destiny started as a vague idea around mid-2009 and it wasn't until like 2010 or later that they actually got the deal with activision and started pre-production. Then after a couple years they were pressured to finish it so most of the game was made between 2013 and 2014 when it launched. And all that combined with having to design and develop aaalllll of the complex server backend stuff that destiny needed. Marathon is piggybacking on a lot of Destiny tech so there's less need for time on that front and between the release date (in less than 2 years most likely) and the initial trailer launch we can easily count nearly 3 years. Why does Bungie keep taking longer and longer with these things? And this isn't a layoff related thing, most of the game's work was done before any employees were fired. They are either incredibly perfectionist or incredibly inefficient, or both, what the hell.

[@cypher4732]

i think they wanted to do something similar to what the old d2 game director did last year. it doesn't work because (1) people already knew and liked that guy (2) wasn't about a whole new game and (3) there is still no gameplay or anything out. this game is gonna be a complete failure

[@underscore_5450]

Historically speaking, Bungie's best projects came out half baked with super short dev times. It seems like the longer Bungie works on a game the worse it turns out ironically. My hope for Marathon is quickly plummeting.

[@MarkisWillis]

I think the guy just wanted to put out there what THEY see an extraction shooter should be, so you understand their motivation in the game they're designing. He's not just explaining what an extraction shooter is. The reason they did this is to promote the Wish Listing, which is a key metric for their investors.

[@vegetablespy94]

I know making a game based off an old ip can be hard, but the fact that he was nervous about what they had done is concerning. I'm looking forward to it for sure and will buy it.

[@O1CTV]

At some point we gotta cope with the fact that Bungie has lost it. It was genuinely a good run but at this point, how many nothing burgers do you need to eat before you go elsewhere?

[@glass-ships]

"there are not AAA extraction shooters" warzone: 😢

[@redactedredacted8107]

This video was the better Marathon update

[@inakilukac]

On that last point. I do think Bungie deserves more credit than they're getting for making an extraction shooter. Before Halo no one took the idea of a really good FPS on console seriously, it was risky as fuck for them. Also before Destiny the idea of a live-servicey seamless coop shooter thing was not a thing. The closest was borderlands and it's not actually all that similar. This isn't too different. It's a very risky attempt at making a less niche Tarkov that also has to work well on consoles and not put off the average gamer. With that precedent it wouldn't be too shocking if the succeed with it (I still don't think they will though)

[@andou_ryuu3205]

Its weird that the video was just the guy explaining what a looter shooter is with a couple of concept art

[@brigasm]

He said they’re listening to the player base but it’s still a hero based shooter rather than custom characters. I know some people like hero shooters but a lot don’t want it. Hopefully it’s good.

[@ModuliOfRiemannSurfaces]

I just don’t understand why they started making a game that literally nobody was asking for.

[@AkamuSlayer]

I'm getting Concord vibes, not because I think the game will be in any way incompetently made, but because I don't see an audience for this. Who is this for? Where is the audience for extraction shooters? How could they imagine that audience is large enough to support the studio financially in the way that Destiny used to?

[@Archisol]

So, basically the director made a video explaining the definition of an extraction shooter. Got it 😅

[@rushboardtechuk]

The video felt more like a Q&A trickled down from Bungie's forums. From what 'was' said, I do hope it is more Helldivers 2 than it is Valorant, with Tarkov mechanics... given Sony's year, it will also likely be paid with microtransactions. On a side point, there is a "runner" mask in Festival of the Lost.

[@Rsquared221b]

The Bungie "twist" is that it's not coming out

[@stephenparker7478]

All I care about is the Bungie-ness: is the FPS gunplay and movement better than Destiny/Halo, or at least equivalent? Can they talk about that?

[@JosephMichael23]

Hi, Tassi; free games on Steam can be wish-listed. I did it with Marathon when they were being released.

[@EvanJamesAudio]

"There are not AAA scale extraction shooters"...DMZ! It was in Call of Duty and they moved away from it because it wasn't that popular!

[@raiden9088]

October 2024. Still waiting for "A COOL ANIMATED INTRO"...

[@phoenix9531]

Prediction that Bungie will either lay off another 200+ employees or become a different studio within Sony in the next 48 months.

[@claybrown5283]

You’d be surprised on how in depth the plot of tarkov is. Yeah you don’t really play it for that but it is super in depth.

[@mattlangford2077]

Joe’s intro of “Yo, what’s going on” gave off the worst vibes I could have possibly gotten. It’s a damn shame Chris Barrett ended up being a horrible creep, but he was obviously passionate with a clear vision for the game. Joe seems unconcerned, uncaring, and frankly looked and sounded blazed out of his mind. Not professional at all, the whole video felt like a KZbinr intro.

[@justincampbell1213]

Two possibilities: they really really want to get it right OR it’s just not ready… Most likely both

[@coneshighwaterpants4430]

I didn't watch the video...but thief and stealth sound the same...

[@kelpyyyyy]

contrary to like all the other comments, I'm pretty excited and curious to see what Marathon has to offer, at the very least it has a cool art direction

[@Rnz1337]

Gonna be honest. I want this game to fail so badly. I think this game represents how Bungie has been neglecting Destiny and it's potential.

[@EchoDoctrine]

Same. All my Destiny friends begged for 10 years for more content. Seeing Bungie send time, money & resources on Marathon and 6 other idiotic projects as Destiny flounders & all my friends quit playing. Classic.

[@Riley562VT]

I can’t friggin wait until marathon becomes an established AAA title! … So that Bungie can continue to make a killing off of us with predatory micro-transactions while they neglect & grossly under-support the game

[@Cerk_du_soleil]

That dev update was such a nothing burger

[@sootymike]

So, content creators have played this game right? it is in alpha when they played but they still played the game. But they wont show us anything in game from Marathon, because its too early.

[@arifhakimi8735]

Paul , you slowly becoming commentary channel KEKW

[@liamjones1630]

They did a Bethesda and announced it way too early

[@EvanC8]

They are making a game no one really wants that still isn’t even playable nor does it look like it will be released in 2025. They should shelf the game

[@DontEatCream]

Maybe Bungie can hire the Firewalk developers so they can finally push this turd out

[@jewilliams13jw]

they should've just hired a new/fresh writing director smh and that's all I'm gonna say

[@maedve83]

The video showed me they have no confidence in Marathon

[@UniqueTechnique29]

An update on a game that they clearly don’t know what exactly it’s going to be. Sound familiar?

[@xtalvolkan]

Marathon is already the game of all time,truly an experience and is very

[@FlashesSoccer011]

Marathon has absolutely no chance of succeeding. They just need to kill this game. Immediately. The reason there are no AAA extraction shooters is because almost no one likes this type of game. This is was a 0/10 idea from the start.

[@tayoffbeat]

there’s just no space for casual gamers in extraction shooters.

[@Jojo-nq3bp]

helldivers is pretty popular

[@tayoffbeat]

@@Jojo-nq3bp helldivers is missing some of defining factors of extraction shooters. PvP, Loss of gear on death, extraction being meaningful. Helldivers is more a co-op horde shooter

[@Jojo-nq3bp]

@@tayoffbeat you kind of lose your gear on death. it's kind of an co-op horde mode extraction shooter abd that's why i love it

[@jaysinart]

Certified yapper and hater

[@hemoplasm7090]

I don’t know Bungie practically sacrificed Destiny to run all these IP’s that didn’t pan out and all that’s left of those is Marathon. Even Bungie employees don’t seem too stoked about working on it. With this little detail and nebulous (at best) descriptions of gameplay specific to that game seems pretty bleak to me. I think corporate greed has been driving Bungie for too long and Sony got burned, won’t last too long. Especially with their flagship falling in numbers every day

[@savagedrew]

I think they’re going to ride things out a bit. The mobile games and changes next year with destiny. Probably won’t see marathon until 2026 or later. Now, I will yes Bungie knows how to make a shooter and tell a story but they can’t seem to get PvP in Destiny right, not expecting that to happen in marathon. I find it funny though that they are “changing” things for what the players like or want. Which is strange for them, I mean yeah there has been ups and downs in Destiny but between gating the hell out of everything and making us jump through hoops to get what we want. Just seems a bit uncharacteristic of them. I still feel like they will still have you do x, then y, in hopes of obtaining z. They won’t let control over player slip away. It’s always been play the way they want you to play. Most likely will be the same with marathon. Don’t get me wrong I hope for the best. I love the team, devs, Dmg( even if responses lately have been dickish), I miss Liana!! I can’t see myself playing marathon at all, the mobile I’m not touching, especially with the slap in the face they just gave half the community that wanted SRL back. So all that’s left for me is D2, which I haven’t played since TFD came out. Mainly a coincidence but with the horrible ass shit show of act 1 and how things are turning out this act with festival of the bugs and weight gate( still think they new) plus in all honesty I love the communication and feed back TFD devs give. Not some one worded response on X I won’t be surprised if more issues happen or Sony steps in or we may not see marathon at all. Who knows. Frankly starting to not care

[@martyk656]

He seemed barely enthusiastic about the game. No real new info. Seems like damage control to me. Sony may still cancel this thing.

[@ashleyday3092]

Two runners a thief and stealth. Sounds like the same character. I just don’t get it.

[@Movel0]

To be fair Paul, you did tell them to talk about Marathon so I guess they took your advice literally.

[@goodtaste2185]

I've only felt disappointment in Bungie for years.

[@Cryptonyx91]

Bungie is gonna have some competition next year. There is another extraction shooter annaunced for next year. And maybe that game had a closed alpha recently. And maybe it was a lot of fun and I cannot wait to play the full game. 🤐

[@ravenmathesen3776]

Paul, your observations are correct. There is no viable game after D2. The Marathon is a lie.

[@bunszheider376]

This game is definitely gonna crash. Now for burning? We shall see

[@cmdew_]

I want marathon to be good :/

[@DollarStoreGuardian]

This game is a literal joke and no one even knows what it is yet.

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

This is going to be the most insulting reboot of my life. I was a die hard Marathon fan in the early-mid 90s. No single player campaign means another exploitative, micro-transaction filled gambling addict game. Modern gaming is crap. The only reason they release games these days is to exploit neurodiverse people who can't resist the micro transactions.

[@mycroft174]

didnt watch the video, dont really feel a need to since i already know what an extraction shooter is

[@trevoroliveira2588]

So disappointing. Was really hoping Marathon would drop early 2025 :(

[@Mihke]

less interested in marathon than i was before

[@spenca97]

Hi Paul Tassi, I am your biggest fan