Last week, Halo and Destiny developer Bungie blew the lid open on its upcoming team-based extraction shooter, Marathon. First impressions and previews show a big deviation from Bungie’s usual M.O., opting for a stylish, fast-paced extraction shooter where the name of the game is loot drops every match. The studio is taking a big leap with this new direction – a sentiment shared by a former Concord developer who commended Bungie for ‘taking a chance.’
To say Concord crashed and burned at launch would be an understatement. The now-defunct PlayStation first-party developer Firewalk Studios took a wild risk of its own by launching a first-person hero shooter in an already crowded market, on top of charging $40 for the experience. Very low player numbers and a lukewarm reception led Concord to being canned and Firewalk Studios shuttered in the span of a few months.
Former Firewalk Studios senior VFX artist Stephan Williams doesn’t want the same curse to impact Bungie’s Marathon, it seems. Speaking on the Marathon subreddit (via VG247), Williams stated:
“After reading the comments about Marathon being Concord 2.0 on Reddit, YouTube, and Twitch, I just wanted to share a little insight into what a 40-year-old man is feeling after dedicating a large portion of his life to making videogames. Seeing the faces of the developers on the Bungie stream gave me hope and excitement for what is to come for Marathon. I commend them for taking a chance, trying something foreign to them, that isn’t proven, nor guaranteed to succeed. It takes a lot of courage.”
Whether that actually pays off at launch is anyone’s guess. The reception to Marathon has been mixed, even among the most devoted Bungie fans. Concord was certainly a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to break into the live-service space in this day and age – well, if you don’t count Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, Marvel’s Avengers and the graveyard of cancelled live-service games too.
Marathon will officially launch on 23 September 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Source: VG247
