Marathon 2025 - Bungie's new AAAA Extraction shooter

[Lammy]

In theory what could they even do with Destiny? Didn't they defeat the big bad evil?

They could just go with:
He wasn't nearly as big, bad, or evil as this new antagonist

They already set this up
Destiny 1's big bad was vaguely the force called "The Darkness" and then they made it into a crazy alien guy using it in Destiny 2 with a character named "The Witness" who used the power of The Darkness (and was masquerading as a personification of The Darkness itself in Destiny 1) to try to cause the heat death of the universe, who got killed super ultra dead by the player character and other protagonists
But now there's this bigger badder guy called "The Winnower" that created The Darkness in the first place (or maybe even just is The Darkness)
The Winnower was known about in the game's lore before The Witness even was concepted as part of the story, but it was intentionally ambiguous as to whether The Winnower even existed, or if the idea of him was just a loose concept to explain and personify The Darkness; but they immediately established him as an existent and definitely real thing in a lore sidenote shortly after killing off The Witness
The story has also teased leaving the solar system and going to other places like the homeworlds of the enemy alien factions, but since Bungie can't just copy-paste existing assets to make those it hasn't happened

I think Destiny 3 is probably still Bungie/Sony's best play to salvage Bungie as a studio, but I'm doubtful that they have the talent, competency, or humility to do that instead of tripling and quadrupling down on Concord 3 Marathon
Shutting down the studio for a 4 billion tax write-off is probably the most logistically sound play though lol

 

[Pod 042]

You think it's more plausible that they would kill off both Marathon and Destiny 2 (the other live service game that they bought) and then spend 200 or 300 million and at least four years of development to producing a Destiny 3.

I'm the delusional one here?

What's the other option? Oni remake?

Total studio shut down and a 4 billion dollar tax right off?

Bungie still has over a billion in capital, money has been lost but the coffers aren't dry yet. And No, the plausible outcome is:
>D2 gets its AoT and goes into maintenance mode
>Marathon goes lights out as staff are moved to D3
>Sony gives them a dev timeline of 2.5 years
>Budget is 25 million per quarter with deadlines
>Failure to meet deadlines means less funding
>Bungie works in survival mode until D3

That's their only winning play. No one remembers their other IPs and Sony won't write them off completely. Investing into Marathon further is a waste. It's never going to exceed D2s current concurrent player count so it's not going to grow. Thinking Marathon is going to come back is like the Anthem fanboys thinking Anthem 2.0 was going to actually happen. If you remember what happened, over two years Anthem 2.0 was abandoned in favor of developing other noteworthy IPs(DA and ME). I may be delusional but I remember history. History says Sony will force Bungie to go back to a well known, marketable franchise instead of sinking money into this failed endeavor. Bookmark this post and call me a fag but I've seen this scenario play out before more than once. D3 may be shit because of it, but it's what we're likely going to get.

 

[creaturestorm]

Sony gives them a dev timeline of 2.5 years

Aint no fucking way they are making a game in 2.5 years unless its a total remix of existing D2 assets in which case all the people cheering for the death of marathon will be cheering for the death of D3.

It's never going to exceed D2s current concurrent player count so it's not going to grow.

I dont know about that one

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

I dont know about that one

I think the biggest thing that’ll determine Marathon’s fate will be where the player count finally stabilizes. Right now, while we’re past the initial hemorrhaging every new game goes through, it’s still swinging fairly wildly.

If they can manage to consistently stay above 10k AND have those remaining players be the type to spend heavily on whatever mtx Marathon has, it might be enough to at least keep the lights on for a year or two. We all know a handful of whales can keep the lights on after all, even if most of the titles that logic applies to generally don’t have Marathon’s fuck huge budget.

That said, there’s the X Factor of pride - Sony’s Live Service push has been a complete failure outside of Helldivers 2, a game thats devs seem to actively try to piss off their community to say nothing of Sony trying to push PSN on PC users, and is stained with the albatross that is Concord. If anything keeps Marathon alive, it’s probably an attempt to justify the amount spent chasing that dragon…

So making a prediction - the thing that gets Marathon shut down is for it to be used as a distraction when Horizon Hunters fucking bombs and Hulst is desperate to keep his baby alive….

 

[regalterry]

If they can manage to consistently stay above 10k AND have those remaining players be the type to spend heavily on whatever mtx Marathon has, it might be enough to at least keep the lights on for a year or two. We all know a handful of whales can keep the lights on after all, even if most of the titles that logic applies to generally don’t have Marathon’s fuck huge budget.

The problem with this, and @Pod 042's prediction about Sony's plans with Bungie, is that Bungie is a massive development studio, they have over 800 employees, so any margin of profitability and/or development costs need to always be scaled way, way up.

Either that or Sony starts gutting Bungie until the workforce has been reduced to a more manageable number, but doing that carries the risk of making shareholders lose even more faith in Sony's leadership and Bungie's ability to deliver.

 

[Kane Lives]

Sony starts gutting Bungie until the workforce has been reduced to a more manageable number, but doing that carries the risk of making shareholders lose even more faith in Sony's leadership and Bungie's ability to deliver.

They have the magic phrase of "AI" to cover any layoffs and downsizing. Snoy, of course, would probably leave it till too late anyway, but there's a reason why all these layoffs are happening now while the AI mania is still hot.

 

[Zenos Yae Viator]

They already set this up
Destiny 1's big bad was vaguely the force called "The Darkness" and then they made it into a crazy alien guy using it in Destiny 2 with a character named "The Witness" who used the power of The Darkness (and was masquerading as a personification of The Darkness itself in Destiny 1) to try to cause the heat death of the universe, who got killed super ultra dead by the player character and other protagonists
But now there's this bigger badder guy called "The Winnower" that created The Darkness in the first place (or maybe even just is The Darkness)
The Winnower was known about in the game's lore before The Witness even was concepted as part of the story, but it was intentionally ambiguous as to whether The Winnower even existed, or if the idea of him was just a loose concept to explain and personify The Darkness; but they immediately established him as an existent and definitely real thing in a lore sidenote shortly after killing off The Witness

This is about right, though the Winnower was basically explained to be the very concept of it,natrual selection, entropy, ect.

How someone can kill the universal concept of of killing in a shooting game (even with cosmic magic) is pretty hard to create in game and in story.. does killing the Universal Concept of Winnowing end natural selection as a concept? does it kill Entropy? will this destroy the Universe because now there will be just infinite growth of matter and energy and even stuff like overpopulation because evolution as a concept (which it also governs) is deleted?

 

[Pod 042]

The problem with this, and @Pod 042's prediction about Sony's plans with Bungie, is that Bungie is a massive development studio, they have over 800 employees, so any margin of profitability and/or development costs need to always be scaled way, way up.

Either that or Sony starts gutting Bungie until the workforce has been reduced to a more manageable number, but doing that carries the risk of making shareholders lose even more faith in Sony's leadership and Bungie's ability to deliver.

Bungie isn't massive, it's bloated to the gills with adult day care jobs and nepotism. They are going to be getting gutted one way or another, either out of necessity or by Sony's hand. And honestly it's been a long time coming.

That's why's I think Marathon will get dropped. Bungie needs to tighten their belt financially and focus on a product that makes money now while also preparing for the future. D2 getting an AoT will keep them afloat, D3 in 2.5 years will print money. Double and tripling down on marathon will kill the studio, and Sony is too invested to let that happen now.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Meanwhile at Sony

"GOYSLOP 4 ALL!"

And somehow it's only going to get worse. I maintain that Fairgame$ isn't coming out, so that leaves the Horizon GaaS and I still refuse to believe that astroturfed slop IP has any consumer demand, no matter how hard career retard Hermen Hulst tries to make it the next big thing.

I don't really see what the alternative for Sony rather than keeping the game running and hoping for some redemption arc to being back players. Shutting it down isn't worth it unless the cost of keeping it alive is less than the current earnings.

My Big Brain idea: scrap it as a standalone game and fold it into Destiny 2 as another $20 add-on. Anyone who already bought it gets it for free plus some Destiny bux to make up the rest of the $40 price tag.

Having Bungie torn between two failing franchises clearly isn't sustainable.

Bungie is a massive development studio, they have over 800 employees

Meanwhile, Halo: Combat Evolved was made by about 50 people. Sony needs to trim a whole lot of that fat.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Meanwhile, Halo: Combat Evolved was made by about 50 people. Sony needs to trim a whole lot of that fat.

Fitting because 90% of that fat is fat middle managers, HR, and artists.

 

[Vhailor]

In theory what could they even do with Destiny? Didn't they defeat the big bad evil?

One of the reasons why Edge of Fate (the latest major DLC) had low player count is that many thought that we would have first out of Solar System destination. The story just before EoF was on The Dreadnaught and many (including My name is Byf aka main lore guy) were theorizing that we would repurpose it for intergalactic travel. The main villain associated with The Dreadnaught called the Taken King (one of the best D1 DLCs about it) and one of the his alias is the Navigator which also fits the idea of moving out from Solar system and our guardian shtick of beating gods and taking their titles/powers.

The potential destination could be Torobatl (which sounds like Torah Battle ) which is Cabals (local orcs but in suits) homeworld. It was destroyed by the Hive (local undead) and more precisely their the Goddess of War which had a lot build up the year before and generally Hive's lore is most interesting part of the lore. There is also a Cabal's leader who is our ally and she helped guardians a lot so we can help her.

 

[The Ugly One]

They already set this up
Destiny 1's big bad was vaguely the force called "The Darkness" and then they made it into a crazy alien guy using it in Destiny 2 with a character named "The Witness" who used the power of The Darkness (and was masquerading as a personification of The Darkness itself in Destiny 1) to try to cause the heat death of the universe, who got killed super ultra dead by the player character and other protagonists
But now there's this bigger badder guy called "The Winnower" that created The Darkness in the first place (or maybe even just is The Darkness)
The Winnower was known about in the game's lore before The Witness even was concepted as part of the story, but it was intentionally ambiguous as to whether The Winnower even existed, or if the idea of him was just a loose concept to explain and personify The Darkness; but they immediately established him as an existent and definitely real thing in a lore sidenote shortly after killing off The Witness
The story has also teased leaving the solar system and going to other places like the homeworlds of the enemy alien factions, but since Bungie can't just copy-paste existing assets to make those it hasn't happened

I think Destiny 3 is probably still Bungie/Sony's best play to salvage Bungie as a studio, but I'm doubtful that they have the talent, competency, or humility to do that instead of tripling and quadrupling down on Concord 3 Marathon
Shutting down the studio for a 4 billion tax write-off is probably the most logistically sound play though lol

I'm always impressed whenever anyone can figure out what the fuck Destiny's story is. I couldn't figure out anything more than:

• The big life sphere turned off
• There's no time to explain
• Some guy flew really far away and turned into a bug

 

[Xarpho's Return]

No one remembers their other IPs

Marathon was like that before it was retconned as some big hit from the 1990s. Wouldn't be surprised if they start laying the groundwork for Oni or Myth to get the same treatment.

 

[Professor Donger]

Marathon was like that before it was retconned as some big hit from the 1990s. Wouldn't be surprised if they start laying the groundwork for Oni or Myth to get the same treatment.

People only cared or talked about Marathon back during the Halo days because Halo had references to it in the game. That's the only reason people talked about it.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

People only cared or talked about Marathon back during the Halo days because Halo had references to it in the game. That's the only reason people talked about it.

Yeah, I think I have a MacAddict from 2001 or 2002 that refers to Marathon as some sort of antiquated classic that is no longer available through normal channels. In 2016 (for example) it was still very obscure.

At some point around the early 2020s Bungie started to talk about Marathon, released the original in 2024 (which had been available on other sources, but now on Steam and very visible) and started to rewrite history about it being some big classic from the 1990s.

I'm sure that part of Marathon 2026's budget was dedicated to shilling Marathon 1994.