Following a recent rumor that Bungie might be thinking of somehow merging PvPvE extraction shooter Marathon with its now-dormant Destiny franchise, the creative director of Marathon has spoken up to shut it down. In a social media post, Julia Nardin, who has worked on both Marathon and Destiny, said that Bungie has no such plans despite both games sharing the same Bungie DNA.
“As someone who’s worked on both Destiny and Marathon, I can confirm that the ‘leak’ about us merging the two IPs is fake. They share a lot of the same Bungie DNA, but like siblings, they’re also their own independent entities. Please don’t believe everything you read online.”
The rumor, which can be seen in the Marathon subreddit, makes several improbable claims, like Marathon getting a new PvE mode dubbed Investigations that would feature boss fights in the vein of Destiny’s raids, and that the extraction shooter would be going free-to-play in December.
The gameplay loop of the Investigations mode would involve 1 to 5 players taking on missions that were seemingly based on the gameplay loop of Monster Hunter and the Salmon Run mode from Splatoon, and would also include an element of extraction, culminating in epic boss battles.
Tying Marathon into Destiny would have been especially difficult. The rumor claimed that the former would be retooled into being a depiction of humanity’s Golden Age, as has been written about throughout lore entries in Destiny. However, anyone with a passing knowledge of either of the two franchises’ stories would have pointed out how difficult this is, since Marathon has its own lore that spans the course of several years, with 1996’s Marathon Infinity stretching the timeline out into Eternity.
Similarly, Destiny has quite a bit of established lore already set up before and after humanity’s Golden Age, and as such, no mention of the Marathon universe is made aside from a few Easter eggs like the presence of the MIDA weapons.
The fact that “most of” Destiny’s team faced layoffs earlier this year, with all content plans for the online loot-based shooter having been canceled, would also make the prospect of Bungie going back to the franchise at such short notice less probable.
In the meantime, Bungie has announced that it has pushed back Marathon’s next major content update from its previously planned September 22nd release date to December 8th. The decision comes as part of a larger plan to move the extraction shooter away from the seasonal content model. The studio also said that it delayed the update so that it could give the team “more flexibility to build, test, and improve features before they are released.”
The update, dubbed Symbiosis, will feature a refreshed version of Perimeter, a new Runner Shell, a Team Deathmatch game mode, and improvements in other areas of the game, like onboarding for new players. Interestingly, the update will also introduce a major new addition to the game in the form of a social hub area where players can hang out and even test out their weapons together at a firing range.
Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
