Summary
Marathonis in a rough spot right now.Bungie’s next big game is just months away from launch, but instead of celebrating the game,the studio is embroiled in a plagiarism scandal. Bungie is addressing this now, but it adds to somepushback from the community regarding the game’s pricing, and somehang ups from the closed beta.
Despite this, it seems that Bungie and Sony have very high expectations for Marathon. According to journalist Paul Tassi, Marathon will have to be in the top five best-selling games of 2025 to be considered a success - and there’s some tough competition.
Marathon Needs To Outperform So Many 2025 Releases
“I don’t expect this to be a success,” says Tassi. “I heard this needed to be in the top five NPD sales for the year if it’s going to be a success, or considered a success. Crazy. There’s no way. […] That seems impossible to me.”
Tassi cites the relatively poor performance of the closed beta as proof of this, although we are set to get more early previews before launch. It’s possible that these will attract more attention, especially now that we’ve seen more of the game.
However, it has also been reported recently thatmorale at Bungie is very low. One employee said that the “vibes have never been worse”, as devs work to get Marathon ready for its launch on September 23 of this year.
If Marathon is not a success, that could be disastrous for Bungie. When Sony’s last live service, Concord, failed to pick up players at launch,the game was taken offline, andthe developer was shut down. It’s unlikely that the same fate will befell Bungie, given its history and the continued success of Destiny 2, but layoffs would be likely.
