Following its official reveal, Bungie’s revival of Marathon was expected to launch later this year on September 23, 2025. However, another plagiarism incident rocked the company and reportedly affected Bungie’s plans leading up to launch. Now, after some time, Bungie has officially announced that Marathon is delayed indefinitely.
“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,” the Marathon Dev Team wrote.
“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.”
Bungie says that they will continue closed testing over the next few months which will include participants from the Alpha. There will be gameplay updates and new features that will be tested as they come online.
Bungie outlined some of the immediate areas that they plan to focus on:
- 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
Bungie says that they will provide an update on the game in the Fall, including the game’s new release date.