Marathon: Release date, trailers & everything we know about Bungie’s extraction shooter
Before Halo and Destiny, developer Bungie created another sci-fi franchise called Marathon. Almost 30 years after the last installment, we’re returning to that universe with a reboot that’s all about frenetic multiplayer action.
So, why should we care if the intricate plots and single-player adventures have been left behind? Well, for starters, it’s a multiplayer first-person shooter — a genre that modern-day Bungie is arguably the master of.
On top of that, the art direction is extremely eye-catching, with a unique flavor that both feels like an evolution of Destiny’s style and the studio coming up with an evolution of Y2K cyberpunk aesthetics they’ve dubbed ‘graphic realism’ after many iterations. The mix of bright colors and futuristic designs with a bleak alien setting looks fantastic and gives the game a really unique style.
We’re excited to get our hands on this one when it launches later this year. Check out the article below for everything we know about Marathon, including the release date, platforms, and gameplay.
What is the Marathon release date?
Marathon is currently set to launch on September 23, 2025.
The feedback from the recent closed alpha tests hasn’t been glowing, and Bungie is finding itself once again in deep trouble over plagiarized art that’s been found across the game, which has reportedly led to “all-time low” morale at the company. All of this has led to speculation that Marathon could be getting delayed.
While the project is currently facing several problems, we’re still hopeful that Sony and Bungie can act on the recent feedback and deliver another excellent shooter — it’s Bungie after all. In the meantime, it’s not like we don’t have lots of upcoming space games to look forward to.
What platforms will Marathon be available on?
Marathon will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Despite being owned by Sony now, Bungie is still a multiplatform developer, and that hasn’t changed for Marathon. Unlike Destiny 2, however, it’ll be a current-gen exclusive. That means PS4 and Xbox One gamers will miss out, but it allows the devs to push the graphical fidelity of the game world and the scale of the maps even further.
Cross-platform play and cross-progression are also confirmed, which means that all players will be able to play together and carry their progress over regardless of their platform of choice.
Sony and Bungie haven’t formally announced a price tag yet, but it won’t be a “full-priced title” according to the developer. In any case, it won’t be free-to-play as many online shooter fanatics had hoped for.
Marathon trailers
Marathon was first teased on May 24, 2023, with a short but intriguing announcement trailer, which established the aesthetic of its rebooted universe and little else. Watch it here:
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Almost two years later, on April 12, 2025, Bungie held a huge re-reveal event that gave us our first proper look with a gameplay reveal trailer, a longer ‘gameplay overview’ trailer, and the stunning cinematic short establishing who the ‘Runners’ are. Find them all below:
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On April 19, 2025, the alpha’s intro cinematic was also released online for everyone who wasn’t lucky enough to get into the closed tests. It’s another mood setter for sure:
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Is Marathon a sequel?
According to game director Christopher Barrett, the new Marathon game isn’t a direct sequel, but it “belongs in the same universe.” While the three original Marathon games were Doom-style single-player shooters heavy in plot, most of this installment’s narrative comes from the background information and bits and pieces players will be able to collect while on missions to Tau Ceti IV’s surface. We’re also expecting the game’s live-service aspirations to establish a loose narrative of sorts that turns all the looting and killing we’ll be doing into something somewhat meaningful.
The aliens of the original games and all the loopy sci-fi adventures that heavily informed Halo and Destiny have been replaced. Instead, we have factions that are sending ‘Runners’ (augmented humans with cybernetic bodies) to infiltrate the remains of Tau Ceti IV’s lost colony. The Runners will have to fight each other, droid forces, and even alien threats that have taken over the planet.
We’ve yet to learn more about the ‘evolving narrative’ aspect of the game, but we can expect big reveals around the ultimate fate of the UESC Marathon — the massive colony ship built out of the Martian moon Deimos — and why the planet’s colony went silent.
What type of game is Marathon?
Marathon is a PvPvE online multiplayer extraction shooter. Solo play is supported, but you will still need to be online to play.
Teams of up to three players are dropped into a huge map (chosen from an evolving rotation) that’s full of AI-controlled enemies and other hazards, along with rival Runner teams. Bungie has underlined that Marathon has been designed around three-player teams, which means solo/duo players will be at a huge disadvantage unless separate modes are added post-launch. As it stands, six teams of three Runners (18 players in total) is the ideal composition of a Marathon match.
The goal is to find and secure valuable resources, random loot, and even better weapons that you must then extract while defeating enemy opponents. Getting killed means that you’ll lose valuables. Being able to extract translates into upgrades for your Runner and weapons, as well as getting new ways to optimize and rethink your builds. If you’re not familiar with the extraction shooter subgenre of online FPS, think of a battle royale with a ‘high risk, high reward’ system built around what you find scattered across the maps.
Runners aren’t player-created avatars, but rather unique characters that can be upgraded and reshaped in a number of ways, much like classes in a hero shooter. Each one possesses different skills and tools to approach the incursions, and essentially acts as a traditional class with a more defined visual (and gameplay) personality.
Six Runners will be available at launch, yet the recent alpha only featured four: Locus (a tanky soldier type), Glitch (a hacker who can disrupt entire teams), Void (a sneaky character with camo cloak and other tricks), and Blackbird (a scout who can reveal where nearby Runners are). We’re expecting more Runners and weapons to be released after launch.
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