Bungie Teases Mysterious Marathon Reveal

Remember Marathon? It's the next game from Destiny developer Bungie, and it looks like we’re about to get a more detailed glimpse of it.

Marathon is a PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries designed to survive the planet’s harsh environments, exploring the lost colony that once inhabited Tau Ceti’s surface.

It's been a while since we last saw or heard about Marathon. In October, Bungie released an extensive development update video that shed light on Marathon's mechanics, but emphasized how early in development the game was. At that point, player character models were still "coming together," while enemy models were in an "early state."

Now, half a year later, it seems Bungie is ready to reveal more about what they’ve been working on. A tweet from the official Marathon account revealed a cryptic image accompanied by garbled signal noise. Fans have noticed ASCII art of 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 looks like Marathon is finally moving forward 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 "mysteries, eeriness, and psychological creepiness." However, Bungie has faced several controversies in recent years, notably the layoff of 220 staff members in July 2024, representing 17% of its workforce—a move criticized even by industry peers.

This followed less than a year after another round of 100 layoffs, at which time staff described the atmosphere at the studio to IGN as "soul-crushing."

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

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This all comes as Sony rethinks its focus on live-service games. Sony president Hiroki Totoki announced in November 2023 that the company was committed to launching just six of the 12 live service games it was working on by March 2026, indicating a shift in strategy that led to the cancellation of The Last of Us multiplayer game.

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

Indeed, Sony’s Concord is considered one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation history, lasting only a couple of weeks before it was taken offline due to extremely low player numbers. Sony later 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 in development at Bluepoint, and the other being worked on by Days Gone developer Bend.