Bungie has announced that the Marathon gameplay reveal will take place on 12th April, after their fans managed to complete an ARG to reveal the date of the reveal. Could you imagine if they hadn’t managed it in time?
Streaming at 6PM UK time / 7PM CEST / 1PM ET / 10AM PT, Bungie’s developers will debut Marathon gameplay alongside news and updates for the game. Here’s a teaser trailer with a pink robot cat in it.
The first new project from Bungie since Destiny, Marathon is a PvPvE team-based extraction shooter set on the planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players will inhabit the bodies of cybernetic mercenaries known as Runners who can survive the planet’s harsh environment while searching the abandoned colony and surrounding planet for loot, including new weapons and gear.
It takes what feels like rather loose inspiration from Bungie’s 1994 FPS, Marathon, an early counterpart to Doom that was a Mac exclusive before spreading to PC with its sequel. The first game was set aboard a colony ship that was under attack by the S’pht and Pfhor alien races, while the ship’s AI gained sentience through a process known as Rampancy – a theme that carried forward to the Halo series. The sequels jetted across to other planets in the universe, delving into time travel and alternate realities.
But don’t expect that story to be told through this new game in anywhere near the same way – you can, at least, play the originals for free. Speaking back at the game’s reveal in 2023, Game Director Christopher Barrett said:
“Marathon is designed from the start as a PvP-focused game and won’t have a single-player campaign. Instead, with the PvP experience as our foundation, we’re creating opportunities for player-driven stories to unfold, stories that are integrated with the overarching game narrative. We’re building a world full of persistent, evolving zones, where players create their own journey with every run they take. That might mean an unforgettable firefight against another crew vying for the same loot, or a last-second extraction while beset on all sides.”
A lot is riding on Marathon for the Bungie team, after difficulties that they faced through the last few years of Destiny 2. The studio went through a round of layoffs following the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape, with numerous projects cancelled or spun-off after a couple years of underperforming profits. That, it seemed, put the company’s pseudo-independence at risk, following its acquisition by Sony. With Bungie yet to really set out where Destiny can go in future, now that its decade-long main narrative has been wrapped up, and with live service games being far from a safe bet these days – just see Suicide Squad and Concord last year – this gameplay reveal is a big deal.
Source: press release
TSBonyman
I think that releasing updated versions of the original games first would have been a better way to garner interest for this.