Bungie announced last year that its next project will be breaking into the extraction shooter realm, stepping into the hit multiplayer genre that has spawned titles like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown. Today, the studio finally gave a complete reveal for Marathon, dropping multiple gameplay trailers and even attaching a release date to the project. Watch the reveal above.
Coming from the creators behind the Halo and Destiny franchises, the Sony-published title has players diving into maps filled with other players and NPC enemies to find loot and extract without perishing.
Weapons, gadgets, and loot of various qualities are up for grabs in these maps. Other than looting the environments, killing other players is also an option to quickly get a lot of equipment, as dying drops all the collected materials for anyone to pick up. Between runs, any earned currency will also be spendable at various shops for additional equipment and changing other aspects.
The studio confirmed today that at launch there will be six playable characters, called Runners, to choose, each focused on different playstyles that can be chosen depending on player tastes. While weapons, equipment, and looks can be customized, each Runner has unique abilities to use during runs to gain an advantage over others.
Aiming to launch with multiple maps, up to 18-player rounds have been confirmed so far for Marathon. Like other extraction shooters, other than player characters, the maps will be filled with other threats too, with squads having up to three players. While the title is supposedly designed for trios, the studio said that it is possible to play solo, though they won’t have a dedicated playlist.
Marathon is releasing on September 23. Moreover, despite being a Sony-published game, the live service experience won’t be exclusive to any platforms, with it coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. Alpha access play tests will be opening up earlier than that.
