Bungie's New 'Marathon' Is An Extraction Shooter Coming To Xbox Series X And S

From the creators of Halo

by Ben Kerry Wed 24th May 2023

Bungie has officially unveiled its revival of 'Marathon' - an old series that the famous Halo developer worked on prior to Xbox's blockbuster franchise. This time, the IP is coming back as an extraction shooter, and Xbox Series X|S is thankfully included in the platform list.

For now, we don't have any kind of release date timeline for Marathon, but at least we finally now know what the team is working on after years and years of Destiny development.

There's some more good news for multi-platform players as well. As per the game's official website, Bungie has confirmed that Marathon will feature full cross-play and cross-save functionality between Xbox Series X|S, PS5 and PC.

So, there you have it. Bungie's next game is indeed coming to Xbox - even if the team is now owned by PlayStation!

"Become a runner in bungie’s new sci-fi pvp extraction shooter. compete for survival, riches, and renown in a world of evolving, persistent zones, where any run can lead to greatness."

Are you happy to see Marathon come back? Let us know your thoughts on this teaser.

[source marathonthegame.com]

Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin' in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he's not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that's far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.

1
Rmg0731
Wed 24th May 2023

Just like the PS showcase, this is extremely disappointing

2
Solidchief
Wed 24th May 2023

@Rmg0731 Metal Gear Solid 3 remake and remaster collection where the highlights of the show for me but you're right it was disappointing.

Oh well hopefully the Xbox event in June 11 is good.

3
anoyonmus
Wed 24th May 2023

@Solidchief well the remake is coming to Xbox but idk about the collection

4
Carck
Wed 24th May 2023

@Solidchief if the highlights are rereleases of 20 year old game you know something’s not adding up.

Xbox has 100% opportunity for a home run next week. Wonder how they gon fudge it up

5
Bartig
Wed 24th May 2023

Not quite sure what an ‘extraction’ shooter is, but it looks very ‘Let’s do these colors so people won’t mistake it for Destiny’.

6
Solidchief
Wed 24th May 2023

@Carck I'll play Spider-Man 2 but the gameplay shown was heavily scripted.

7
UltimateOtaku91
Wed 24th May 2023

Bunjie are one of the best at making shooters and great gameplay, so im actually quite hyped for this.

8
Rmg0731
Wed 24th May 2023

@Solidchief if its not i worry for the state of the industry. It would be a big change if everything came out at summer games fest.

9
S1ayeR74
Wed 24th May 2023

Loved the originals. Wonder how this will play though?

10
Broosh
Thu 25th May 2023

Oof, was pretty interested until the multiplayer extraction bit. I like the campaign of the originals, so I'll give this one a pass.

11
MinervaX
Thu 25th May 2023

Honestly surprised that they are indeed allowing Bungie to make their games entirely multi-plat, or at least this one.

Then again, also surprised that MS allowed Bungie to keep the rights to Marathon when they let them buy themselves away.

12
InterceptorAlpha
Thu 25th May 2023

Leave it to Bungie to drag a classic, like Marathon, through the mud like this.

13
AndroidBango
Thu 25th May 2023

The original Marathon and Marathon 2 were superb, with great single-player modes, and genuinely exciting co-op and deathmatch modes. This looks to be everything they weren't.

14
themightyant
Thu 25th May 2023

@AndroidBango Indeed. Marathon was a single player FPS somewhere between Doom and System Shock along with an 8 player LAN multiplayer deathmatch. This seems to be something different a PvP extraction shooter with no single player. Marathon in name only

15
bpomber
Thu 25th May 2023

@Tharsman I don't think that was surprising at all. The day the Bungie acquisition was announced they said that Bungie will be an independent subsidiary and remain a multiplatform studio following the acquisition. No broken promises or 10-year deals, just clear communication right off the bat.

16
MinervaX
Thu 25th May 2023

@themightyant @NorthwestEagle @AndroidBango If you were a Mac user in the 90s, Bungie and Marathon were big names.

Despite it being commendable that they are bringing this game to Xbox, post Sony acquisition, it feels a bit of a shame that they didn't commit to a Mac version too. I know macs are not known for gaming, but still. Even Microsoft decided to play nice with the first Halo, allowing a third party (MacSoft) to port it to Mac back in the day.

17
themightyant
Fri 26th May 2023

@Tharsman That's a slight re-writing of history. The Mac community was super-pissed at the time as Halo was originally developed and marketed as a Mac game, we were looking forward to it after Marathon. No less than Steve Jobs debuted it at the 1999 NY Mac Expo. It was a hugely anticipated Mac title.

Then Microsoft, impressed by Halo and seemingly wanting to undercut Mac on games bought Bungie and it initially only released on Xbox only, people were mad. It wasn't till 1-2 years later that it came to Mac and Windows.

Not sure i'd call that "playing nice" but it was better late than never. It was a classic example of Microsoft bulldozing the opposition imho. Along with other strategic partnerships they really cut off Mac's push into games. Apple were briefly pushing the gaming angle hard at the time, they were advertising PlayStation games on Mac (Sony also went after Connectix makers of the VGS PS emulator shown here), Apple debuted Quake Arena, had Tomb Raider, Sim City, StarCraft etc. It was a pivotal moment, and gaming history could have been very different. (edited for clarity and to add some facts)

18
MinervaX
Fri 26th May 2023

@themightyant I was a huge Macadddict back then (even subscribed to the magazine by that name) and yes, the mac user base was extremely angry, but MS didn’t acquire Bungie to undermine mac, this was at the time MS had already invested on Mac to make sure they stuck around since without Mac, Windows was a monopoly.

The version of Bungie revealed by Jobs was very different than what we got at the end, it was not even an FPS. Anyways, MS wanted a console exclusive title. The game hit both, Windows and Mac the same year (2003). At that time MS was playing by console game norms, that meant exclusives also excluded PC, even MS own Windows.

19
themightyant
Fri 26th May 2023

@Tharsman It's true Microsoft had invested in Apple to save them. But I think Microsoft, very sensibly, wanted Apple in the game to prevent them having a complete monopoly, which would have only further invited regulators to come in and break them up. Hence they wanted the devil they knew, Apple, but they also didn't want them too strong.

It was just at that moment that gaming on Mac was starting to really take off and felt like a pivotal moment in gaming history. It had a prominent part in several Apple showcases. Had Apple continued down that path gaming might have been as big on Mac as Windows. But Mac lost Halo, Microsoft also partnered with many other gaming companies to bring their games to PC first. It was aggressive tactics.

At the same time Connectix was being sued by Sony for their Virtual Game Station emulation software which allowed PlayStation games to be played on Mac. Connectix actually won, but Sony had stalled then in the meantime, not allowing them to sell the software via an injunction, by which time PS2 was almost out. Sony eventually bought VGS from Connectix to counter the threat.

All put together Apple stopped making gaming a focus of their showcases and they started to prioritise other avenues such as music, iPod and iTunes instead, which turned out to be far more lucrative for them.

20
MinervaX
Fri 26th May 2023

@themightyant don’t forget that truth is Jobs and Gates were a bit of frienemies. They annoyed each other but also got along.

Honestly, even as a big Mac lover back in the day, I never took seriously any of Apples gaming initiatives. Even to this day, Apple Arcade makes money but I don’t see it as seriously into gaming, more as simply seriously about monetizing the App Store, if that makes any sense.

Anyways, Jobs was famously not interested in gaming at all. He did have a few token showings of games, because he started to see big games sold platforms, but they never put any real weight on developer tools or hardware to support them the way Windows did with Direct X. Even their Pro towers would be sold with cards and drivers meant for profesional work and scientific research, not gaming focused.

They never even tried making it easy for third parties to sell video cards, the most basic needed thing to make PC gaming what it was, because Apple demanded then (and even still toddy) to control all the driver development in their OS.

It was very frustrating to be a computer science student focused on gaming and fan of Macs in a time that it felt Apple basically didn’t want us around.

21
themightyant
Sat 27th May 2023

@Tharsman always interesting hearing someone else’s take on history, thanks for sharing.

I think there were 2-3 years where Apple, and Jobs, were really pushing gaming quite aggressively on Mac, it took up significant section of their expos and got a LOT media of coverage. But then when they got cut off they went completely the other way. For all his genius Jobs could be very petty too if he didn’t get his own way.

Apple, and Jobs, didn’t really showcase it again until iPhone when it became clear how their new platform was a perfect vector for gaming to the masses. It made them hundreds of billions on their App Store. I’m sure he enjoyed that.

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