Monday, April 14th 2025
Bungie's Marathon Launching September 23, Gets New Gameplay Trailer
Today, Bungie, the creators of Halo and Destiny, revealed gameplay of their upcoming team-based extraction shooter Marathon. As part of the live Marathon Gameplay Reveal Showcase, Bungie developers premiered Alpha gameplay of the tactical and fast-paced FPS, explored the mysterious and cutthroat world of Tau Ceti IV, and discussed how to join the Marathon Closed Alpha Test.
In addition, Bungie announced Marathon will release on September 23, 2025 on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S with full cross play and cross save. In the meantime, players can join the Marathon community Discord, where they can sign up for a chance to be one of the first to playtest Marathon. The Bungie team will be actively engaging in Discord, holding live Q&As, and evolving the game based on player feedback for launch and beyond.
The World of Marathon
In Marathon, players inhabit a Runner, a cybernetic mercenary scouring the remains of a lost colony of Tau Ceti IV for fortune and power. Players team up in crews of three as they battle rival Runner teams and hostile security forces for weapons and upgrades. Survive and everything they've scavenged is theirs to keep for future runs on Tau Ceti IV—or if they're brave enough, a journey to the derelict Marathon ship that hangs above.
Tau Ceti IV
Welcome to Tau Ceti IV, a lost colony whose inhabitants disappeared without a trace. Rival factions compete for the resources left behind, hiring Runners who've given up their human form for biosynthetic shells. Death is but a hurdle in this cutthroat competition where power, fortune, and answers to Tau Ceti IV's mysteries hang in the balance.
Become a Runner
Choose from a roster of cybernetic mercenaries with unique abilities. Players customize their Runner's playstyle with the weapons, implants, and equipment they collect on their runs. Strategize, execute, and become Tau Ceti's most feared mercenary.
A High-Stakes Journey to Grow in Power
Bungie's best-in-class FPS gunplay sets the stage for a unique mix of tactical and fast-paced action, where every run is a tense competition for a big score. End game challenges, ranked play, seasonal storytelling, community events, and more await in Season 1.
Marathon | Reveal Cinematic Short
While Marathon gameplay was the focus of the Showcase, Bungie surprised audiences by closing out the event with the first, original cinematic short set in the Marathon universe, displaying the team's commitment to rich storytelling both in and out of the game. This cinematic short was written and directed by the award-winning director Alberto Mielgo and his animation studio pinkman.tv.
"When I first read about Marathon's universe and characters, I found everything strangely poetic and mysterious," said Alberto Mielgo. "The concepts of futility and endurance immediately came to mind, and I felt an urgent need to write about it. Seeing the game team's super bold and vibrant artwork created an instant connection. It's all deeply inspiring and thought-provoking."
Source:
Marathon
In addition, Bungie announced Marathon will release on September 23, 2025 on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S with full cross play and cross save. In the meantime, players can join the Marathon community Discord, where they can sign up for a chance to be one of the first to playtest Marathon. The Bungie team will be actively engaging in Discord, holding live Q&As, and evolving the game based on player feedback for launch and beyond.
In Marathon, players inhabit a Runner, a cybernetic mercenary scouring the remains of a lost colony of Tau Ceti IV for fortune and power. Players team up in crews of three as they battle rival Runner teams and hostile security forces for weapons and upgrades. Survive and everything they've scavenged is theirs to keep for future runs on Tau Ceti IV—or if they're brave enough, a journey to the derelict Marathon ship that hangs above.
Tau Ceti IV
Welcome to Tau Ceti IV, a lost colony whose inhabitants disappeared without a trace. Rival factions compete for the resources left behind, hiring Runners who've given up their human form for biosynthetic shells. Death is but a hurdle in this cutthroat competition where power, fortune, and answers to Tau Ceti IV's mysteries hang in the balance.
Become a Runner
Choose from a roster of cybernetic mercenaries with unique abilities. Players customize their Runner's playstyle with the weapons, implants, and equipment they collect on their runs. Strategize, execute, and become Tau Ceti's most feared mercenary.
A High-Stakes Journey to Grow in Power
Bungie's best-in-class FPS gunplay sets the stage for a unique mix of tactical and fast-paced action, where every run is a tense competition for a big score. End game challenges, ranked play, seasonal storytelling, community events, and more await in Season 1.
Marathon | Reveal Cinematic Short
While Marathon gameplay was the focus of the Showcase, Bungie surprised audiences by closing out the event with the first, original cinematic short set in the Marathon universe, displaying the team's commitment to rich storytelling both in and out of the game. This cinematic short was written and directed by the award-winning director Alberto Mielgo and his animation studio pinkman.tv.
"When I first read about Marathon's universe and characters, I found everything strangely poetic and mysterious," said Alberto Mielgo. "The concepts of futility and endurance immediately came to mind, and I felt an urgent need to write about it. Seeing the game team's super bold and vibrant artwork created an instant connection. It's all deeply inspiring and thought-provoking."
17 Comments on Bungie's Marathon Launching September 23, Gets New Gameplay Trailer
My second thought on Gameplay: Concord 2.0...
Still, should this not be F2P, it's gonna be rough, I presume. The market is just not that easy on extraction shooters anymore. People have their go-to titles already.
Halo WAS supposed to be a sequel of sorts to Marathon early in development, though that obviously didn’t play out. I remember people speculating more than a decade ago that Destiny would be one also based on the title and the parting words from Durandal in Infinity, though that also wasn’t the case. What they are doing here is just… odd. Marathon isn’t a super strong brand, yeah, and naming a new extraction shooter of all things as a part of the series (or a reboot?) just seems weird.
However, I can play Destiny 2 on an RX 480 at 1440p, and that game looks better than Marathon, IMO.
I don't have a problem with these types of shooters if they're done relatively well.. its just most aren't. I didn't enjoy destiny 2, despite the fact it turned around eventually after launch (only mildly though), so I'm not too excited for this new 'marathon' game (marathon in name only, to be honest)IP-necrophilia is unfortunately a pretty common practice nowadays, big corporations do it all the time to prevent a IP from being lost (or something like that.) I'm sure it will probably have SOME sort of connection to the originals maybe, but I don't think anyone who loves the original marathon should play this game unless they like the new aspects & can accept that the game just.. is marathon in name only. Speaking from experience w/ Halo here, when playing other halos VS halo 5.
Frankly, I'll give it a month before it crashes, since the looter-shooter market is saturated with plenty of free or cheaper options, and the current Bungie devs are pretty incompetent given their handling of Destiny 2 after the split with Activision.