Marathon, the PVP-VPE extraction shooter that Bungie had been working on, has had its fair share of struggles in getting to release. Originally slated for September 23, 2025, on PS5, Xbox, and PC, it faced delays on account of what the team needed to redo. Still, according to Sony, the game will launch before March 2026, the end of its financial year.
Grievously, it sounds that the delays can be attributed to the early feedback from players, whereas reviews were abysmal. Many claimed the game desired better AI, more depth to the story, and sharper graphics. CFO Lin Tao mentioned her thoughts about the game more during their recent meeting. According to her, work is going well, and a new date ought to be announced this fall. No promises were made; yet, she narrows the options around canceling the game.
If you do not know Marathon, the game in which you and your two teammates run through tense missions fighting both human players and AI enemies for loot. You get to keep the items and weapons you gathered, increasing your power for the next matches, if you somehow avoid death and escape. I like games like this because it’s always a gamble whether you’re going to lose everything, and that makes it exciting till the end.
One thing that Bungie does differently in this title is the fact that they intend it to be a paid game and not one free-to-play. During a time when most live-service games depend on microtransactions from day one, this is actually a benevolent move. It will be nice for the folks tired of every game cramming their pockets with M-Tx dollars.
And in all that, Bungie is going through modern changes. They were working quite independently since the acquisition by Sony. Now they will be working more along the lines of being an actual part of PlayStation Studios. This is a huge transition, unlike the initial deal that afforded Bungie plenty of freedom.
According to what I follow, the integration is already ongoing. It’s been rough for Bungie lately: some people left Destiny 2, layoffs hit the team, and there was even some drama about art assets from Marathon being used from other works. All these have raised a lot of questions in the minds of many about whether Bungie could still deliver big results for the returns that Sony expected.
Bungie was meant to be one of the main studios really pushing for the creation of more live-service titles for PlayStation 5. But all these recent issues seem to have given another reason for Sony to tighten the reins of control. Fully integrating Bungie into PlayStation Studios also means that Sony will now oversee timelines and quality checks to ensure Bungie’s work is in alignment with their plans.
The outcome of this can either be good or bad, depending on how you put it. Bungie now gets full access to the whole developmental and publishing support of PlayStation. That also means it has to abide by a list of rules and procedures, something Bungie has stayed clear of ever since they left Microsoft way back in 2007.
Marathon has been under a lot of pressure, as it is seen by many as Bungie’s chance to show that they can still create a hit live-service game following the slump of Destiny 2 in terms of player numbers. The delay may frustrate its fans, but, honestly, I’d rather wait for a polished game than get a rush job.
That Sony would trust the project must mean that the game is passing some of its internal tests. Should the changes coming this fall show serious improvement in AI, story, and visuals, people could be once more excited about the project.
Extraction shooters have gotten more popular now than they were a few years back, with titles like Escape from Tarkov and The Cycle: Frontier having massively strong fan bases. Marathon will have to prove itself much more in this space. It has to be difficult enough to attract hardcore players while being soft enough for beginners to hop in.
Bungie’s full move into PlayStation might affect more than just Marathon. When more from Sony studios work together, they should be able to share technology and potentially promote one another’s games with their technology or even do some crossover content. I think it could be fun to witness as a gamer.
By the time of the fall update, players will want to witness solid evidence as to why this delay was worth it. There is somehow a probability that should Marathon be released as a smooth, fun game, the delay would be forever remembered as the wise one that saved the project.
Now that Bungie has something of a real integration into PlayStation Studios, that really indicates quite an unraveling of things not long after the acquisition. It started as more of a partnership with a degree of independence, but now it is somewhat of a first-party relationship. If it results in better games, it may just be the right thing to do.
And with March 2026 just drawing near, the hopes for Marathon’s success are riding reasonably high for both Bungie’s name and Sony’s live-service plans. If it succeeds, Bungie can establish itself as one of the mightiest studios in the PlayStation environment. But if it fails, the backlash will go way longer than just a single title.
When that fall announcement rolls around, we’ll see whether Marathon is Bungie’s great comeback or another example of just how tough the live-service landscape can be.