Bungie’s Marathon has run into plenty of issues ever since the extraction shooter was first shown off properly earlier this year, with alpha testers finding the game lacking in uniqueness – then being exacerbated by confirmation that the game had used stolen assets from an independent artist. This all led to the game being indefinitely delayed. With all the legal issues surrounding the stolen assets now being resolved however, Bungie have come out and given us a new official release date.
As part of the company’s latest ‘Vision of Marathon’ ViDoc, the team at Bungie confirmed that Marathon will now officially release in March of 2026 – though we did not get an exact release date.
Alongside this however, the team also finally confirmed that the game will launch at a price of $39.99/£34.99 (matching previous rumours).
Of course, Marathon was previously delayed not only due to the legal issues, but also as a result of heavy backlash from fans. As such, the team made sure to note all of the improvements made since the alpha tests, including but not limited to:
- Proximity chat
- Solo queue
- Rook – “a Runner shell used to scavenge matches in progress”
- A “doubling down on the dark, gritty, and grounded sci-fi world”
- Improved visual fidelity and immersion
- Dead Runners drop as corpses that decay over time
- Deepened environmental storytelling
- Audio improvements
With a relatively poor first showing and multiple controversies, Marathon has quite the uphill battle. Still, the changes and improvements listed do sound positive, and so hopefully Marathon can wind up being a fun addition to the extraction shooter genre. We will have to wait and see.
KitGuru says: Do you have any hope in Marathon? How many years of support do you think the game will end up receiving? What are your thoughts on the listed changes? Let us know down below.
