Bungie Unveils Teaser for Marathon: What's Next?

Remember Marathon? It's the next game from Destiny developer Bungie, and it looks like we're finally about to see more of it.

Marathon is a PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players take on the roles of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries engineered to survive the planet's harsh conditions, as they explore the remnants of a lost colony on Tau Ceti's surface.

It's been a while since we last heard about Marathon. In October, Bungie released a detailed development update video that provided insights into the game's mechanics, but emphasized that the game was still in its early stages. At that time, player character models were still being refined, and enemy models were in an early state.

Now, half a year later, it seems Bungie is ready to showcase their progress. A tweet from the official Marathon account, shown below, features a cryptic image accompanied by garbled signal noise. Fans have noticed ASCII art referencing footage from the debut Marathon trailer. Given Bungie's reputation for mysterious teasers, hidden clues, and Easter eggs, there's likely much more to uncover, and fans are already on the case.

Either way, it appears that Marathon is finally making strides after a challenging development period.

pic.twitter.com/6NBgIdRVK2

— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) April 4, 2025

Marathon was unveiled in May 2023 as a reboot of the classic Bungie franchise, emphasizing themes of mystery, eeriness, and psychological creepiness. However, Bungie has faced several controversies in recent years, including the layoffs of 220 staff members in July 2024, which represented 17% of its workforce. This move was criticized even by industry peers.

This came less than a year after another round of 100 layoffs at Bungie, where staff described the atmosphere as "soul-crushing" to IGN.

Further controversy arose when a report surfaced weeks after the 220 job cuts, alleging that former Marathon director Chris Barrett was fired following an internal misconduct investigation at Bungie. Barrett later sued Sony Interactive Entertainment and Bungie for over $200 million.

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This all coincides with Sony reevaluating its focus on live-service games. Sony president Hiroki Totoki stated in November 2023 that the company planned to launch only six of the twelve live service games it had in development by March 2026, marking a strategic shift that led to the cancellation of The Last of Us multiplayer game.

While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 was a breakout success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, Sony's other live service games either faced cancellation or disastrous launches.

Sony's Concord, for instance, became one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting only a couple of weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player numbers. Sony eventually decided to terminate the game and shut down its developer.

Earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games: one a God of War title being developed by Bluepoint, and the other at Days Gone developer Bend.