Bungie's Marathon: A Mysterious Tease Revealed

Remember Marathon? It's the next game from Destiny developer Bungie, and it looks like we're about to get a deeper look into it.

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

It's been a while since we last heard about Marathon. In October, Bungie shared a comprehensive development update video that provided insights into the game's mechanics, emphasizing that it was still in the early stages of development. At that time, player character models were still being refined, and enemy models were in their preliminary stages.

Now, half a year later, it appears Bungie is ready to unveil more of what they've been working on. A tweet from the official Marathon account, shown below, featured a cryptic image accompanied by garbled signal noise. Fans have noticed ASCII art within the image, reminiscent of footage from the debut Marathon trailer. Given Bungie's reputation for enigmatic teasers, hidden clues, and Easter eggs, there's likely much more to uncover, and the community is already on the case.

Either way, it seems like Marathon is finally moving forward after a challenging development period.

pic.twitter.com/6NBgIdRVK2

— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) April 4, 2025

Marathon was first announced in May 2023 as a reboot of the classic Bungie franchise, incorporating themes of "mysteries, eeriness, and psychological creepiness." However, Bungie has faced significant challenges in recent years, including the layoff of 220 staff members in July 2024, which represented 17% of its workforce. This move was criticized by industry peers.

This followed less than a year after another round of layoffs affecting 100 employees, with staff describing the atmosphere at the studio 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 subsequently filed a lawsuit against Sony Interactive Entertainment and Bungie, seeking over $200 million.

Amid these challenges, Sony is reevaluating its focus on live-service games. In November 2023, Sony president Hiroki Totoki announced that the company would launch only six of the 12 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 became a breakout success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever, other Sony live service titles either faced cancellation or disastrous launches.

Sony's Concord, for instance, is considered one of the biggest video game flops in PlayStation history, lasting only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player engagement. 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 by Days Gone developer Bend.