After a month of silence, Bungie gives us more details on Marathon and the future of the game.
With the issues regarding plagiarism of artist “4nt1r34l” (Antireal) as well as the reception to their closed alpha that ended in May, the developers behind Marathon have been rather quiet. Given information provided by Paul Tassi’s articles we also know of a cancelled plan to release a new trailer and pre-orders this month, something that had fans waiting with bated breath as to what would be the information given to us. Today, an update on their website provides us with the unfortunate truth we’ve all been expecting: Marathon has been delayed indefinitely.
While we’ll be going further past September 23rd waiting for the full release of the extraction shooter, a couple more notes should hopefully keep players in high spirits. For one, the developers will be running additional closed testing of updates and features over the next few months. This includes players from the Alpha, meaning that we might not have to wait all too long for our next look at Tau Ceti IV. In addition, the team has noted their focuses moving forwards as they continue to develop the game. You can check the update here for more details, but here are some key points to take away:
- Focusing on the “survival under pressure” aspects of the game
- Still looking to make their “raid-like endgame challenges” teased in trailers
- AI encounters will be increased in difficulty
- More rewards, loot, and events to improve run diversity
- Higher visual fidelity and more narrative elements to interact with
- A tone matching the darker themes of the original trilogy
- Improvements for solo and duo players
- Proximity Chat
The update ends with a promise to reveal a release date in the Fall as well as sharing more of the progress they make over this time. While there was no note of their investigation to avoid future plagiarism or other often requested features such as offline/PvE modes, the information still gives a small shimmer of hope for fans of the game. Optimistically, this delay allows the team to work with less crunch on finalizing the traits they want to shine as well as work to turn their morale around after the issues they had been dealing with. Until we receive more notes on the future playtests and updates for the game, all we can do is continue cheering on the developers as they work to make Marathon the best it can be.
