Bungie, the Sony-owned game studio behind Destiny 2, has delayed its upcoming game Marathon to 2025. The game was originally scheduled to be released in 2024, but the theory is that it is because of a lack of staff. This delay was revealed by Bloomberg shortly after Bungie laid off an undisclosed number of staff. This suggests that the layoffs may have impacted the development of Marathon.
Bungie has not commented on the reason for the delay nor was it mentioned in the initial report, but my bet is the fact that they don’t have the staff they used to. The studio is currently working on a number of projects, including the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape. It is always a possibility that Bungie just decided to focus more on Destiny 2 than Marathon.
Jason Schreier, who originally tweeted about this, clarified later that “To be clear, Bungie recently *told staff* that The Final Shape and Marathon are delayed. It was not made public until this story”
It is unclear what the future holds for Marathon. Bungie has not commented on the game since the delay was revealed to staff. However, it is likely that the studio will provide more information in the coming months. In the meantime, fans of Bungie’s games can still look forward to the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape.
It will be interesting to see how Bungie responds to all of this if they do at all. In my experience, when a studio lays off staff and begins delaying games, it tends to allude to that game being in murky waters.
We may very well see the game be canceled just because the staffing isn’t there. Only time will tell but we hope to see Marathon make a comeback. Until then, we’ll keep our ears open for more details.