The text below was published on the official website of the game.
We appreciate not only your passionate feedback regarding the reveal of Marathon and the Alpha test, but also your patience while we took time to listen carefully and plan our next steps.
Your voice has been loud and clear across all feedback and real-time discussions on social media and Discord. We take this seriously and recognize that we need more time to shape Marathon into a game that truly reflects your passion. After extensive discussion with our development team, we’ve made the decision to delay the release to September 23.
The Alpha test created an opportunity to calibrate and focus the game on what will make it uniquely compelling: survival under pressure, mystery and story around every corner, raid-like endgame challenges, and the genre-defining FPS combat Bungie is known for.
We’re using this time to empower the team to build the intense, challenging experience a title like Marathon promises. This means deepening the relationship between developers and the game’s most critical voices: our players.
Over the coming months, we’ll continue closed testing (including Alpha participants) to deploy gameplay updates and test new features as they become available.
Some of our immediate focus areas will include:
- Enhancing Survival Gameplay
- More challenging and engaging AI encounters
- More rewarding runs with new loot types and dynamic events
- Making combat more tense and strategic
- Doubling Down on the Marathon Universe
- Increased visual fidelity
- More environmental storytelling to discover and interact with
- A darker tone reflecting the original trilogy’s themes
- Adding More Social Experiences
- Improved solo/duo gameplay experience
- Proximity Chat fostering emergent social narratives
We’ll reconnect with you later this fall when we can share our progress, along with the game’s new release date. We again appreciate your patience and, most importantly, your passion. Your ongoing feedback will help us make Marathon the incredible gaming experience we all know it can be.
