Bungie has today announced that Marathon will no longer release on September 23rd, with the team continuing to work on the game throughout the year before it will provide an update later this year in Spring with updates and hopefully a new release date.
The announcement was made on the Bungie blog and it’s said that the decision was made due to feedback from the playtests so far in which there was a lot of feedback.
“Through every comment and real-time conversation on social media and Discord, your voice has been strong and clear. We’ve taken this to heart, and we know we need more time to craft Marathon into the game that truly reflects your passion. After much discussion within our Dev team, we’ve made the decision to delay the September 23rd release.” said Bungie.
In regards to where the team will focus on its development efforts, it’s said that these will be the areas of focus:
- Upping the Survival Game
- More challenging and engaging AI encounters
- More rewarding runs, with new types of loot and dynamic events
- Making combat more tense and strategic
- Doubling down on the Marathon Universe
- Increased visual fidelity
- More narrative and environmental storytelling to discover and interact with
- A darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy
- Adding more social experiences
- A better player experience for solo/duos
- Prox chat, so social stories can come to life
You can read the full blog post below or on the Bungie website HERE:
MARATHON DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
Thank you not only for your passionate feedback around the Marathon reveal and Alpha playtest, but also for your patience while we took the time to listen closely and chart our next steps.
Through every comment and real-time conversation on social media and Discord, your voice has been strong and clear. We’ve taken this to heart, and we know we need more time to craft Marathon into the game that truly reflects your passion. After much discussion within our Dev team, we’ve made the decision to delay the September 23rd release.
The Alpha test created an opportunity for us to calibrate and focus the game on what will make it uniquely compelling—survival under pressure, mystery and lore around every corner, raid-like endgame challenges, and Bungie’s genre-defining FPS combat.
We’re using this time to empower the team to create the intense, high-stakes experience that a title like Marathon is built around. This means deepening the relationship between the developers and the game’s most important voices: our players.
Over the next few months, we’ll continue closed testing(including participants from the Alpha) to deploy gameplay updates and test new features as they come online.
