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June 18, 2026 · 6 min read

I’ve been wanting to sit down and reflect on the journey both the community and the game took throughout the years. This will be a recap of the game’s history through different eras of development. I’ll be attempting to cover everything we know about the game’s development from conception all the way to release. I’ll be talking about a lot of cool facts and tidbits throughout the article, and I’ll have my opinion sprinkled in here and there. I should also note that I won’t be going over the content in the NDA playtests too deeply… Bungie will, unfortunately, have my head. Other than that, I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions whatsoever, or more importantly, see something incorrect/missing information, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Intro

I’ve been wanting to sit down and reflect on the journey both the community and the game took throughout the years. This will be a recap of the game’s history through different eras of development. I’ll be attempting to cover everything we know about the game’s development from conception all the way to release. I’ll be talking about a lot of cool facts and tidbits throughout the article, and I’ll have my opinion sprinkled in here and there. I should also note that I won’t be going over the content in the NDA playtests too deeply… Bungie will, unfortunately, have my head. Other than that, I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions whatsoever, or more importantly, see something incorrect/missing information, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

If you don’t know who I am, nice to meet you! Just some quick background, I’ve been a part of the Bungie community since Shadowkeep, but I’m best known for my datamining/leak work with Bungieleaks and Colony Zero/Deakstiny. I also run the tciv.art Marathon Art Archive! Like many, I immediately fell in love with the original Marathon reveal trailer. While I was absent from the first ARG (and thus won’t be covering it too much here), I’ve been following the game very closely for a long time. My professional background is in Business Process; combined with what I’ve learned about Bungie through my years of poking around Destiny 2 and Marathon, I like to imagine I have a kind of unique perspective on the game.

Beginnings of Marathon

Around 2022, rumors started circulating that Bungie was working on some new games. Nowadays, we know that those games were the now-cancelled new IP “Matter”, a MOBA/Platform Fighter codenamed “Gummy Bears” (presumably now being developed by the new PlayStation incubation team teamLFG), and of course, Marathon. For context, Marathon is not a new IP. In 1994, the original Marathon was released, with two sequels coming not too long after. These games are very different from what we have now. I’d compare them to the original DOOM. The new Marathon is in the same universe as the original trilogy, albeit many years later. They’re all free to play on Steam if you’re interested! We don’t have too much information regarding the game prior to the reveal, but development likely started after Chris Barrett pitched the idea around 2019, with the earliest playable build finished in 2020.

On May 24th, 2023, Bungie showed off the iconic Marathon Announce Trailer alongside some brief details (basically just saying it’s an extraction shooter). This trailer felt so fresh and new at the time, with many people (including me) falling deeply in love with its aesthetic. It really was the first time I could remember being that excited about a game trailer, a feeling I’m sure I’m not alone on.

Just a few days later, the first Marathon Alternate Reality Game (ARG) launched. For those who don’t know, an ARG is “an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform”. They generally utilize a wide array of media, ranging from websites to real-life locations. They typically include very complicated puzzles that require a whole community to solve, and Marathon’s first ARG was no exception. This ARG consisted of exploring in-universe websites of the game’s fictional corporations, giving us our first look into the new world and mythos of the Marathon reboot. God, these websites were stunning. It was such a wild ride and truly made many fall in love even deeper with the art direction. There’s so much to talk about here, and you could write multiple pages. I’d like to point out that this was made before the switch in game directors. Many things have changed, so as a rule of thumb, take all the lore from this ARG with a grain of salt.

Around June 2023, the game director at the time, Chris Barrett, was fired from Bungie following an investigation into alleged inappropriate conduct towards at least eight female employees. After his departure, the game went through many changes, so now we refer to the original vision as the “Barrett Cut”.

Barrett Cut

The best information we have on the Barrett Cut comes from one of two places. The first are Barrett’s many comments/tweets/whatever about his vision/experience working on the game. These are typically vague with nothing to really point to, but there are one or two major threads that give us a good view of what his ideal Marathon would have looked like.

The second source of information is the reuploaded Marathon Somewhere In The Heavens ViDoc. This is our best look at what Marathon was going to be, assuming Barrett remained on the project. While it doesn’t give us too much new information, we also have a number of leftover strings from the April Open Alpha that give a little more context/flavoring to what this version of Marathon could’ve looked like.

Starting off on a thread directly from Barrett, on December 21st, 2025, he replied to someone on Twitter detailing a few key points of his original vision for Marathon. I’ll touch up on a few of these points, but here’s everything he talked about (mostly copied and pasted straight from his tweet; I paraphrased a few for clarity).

Original Vision:

Switching gears to the Vidoc now. Such an incredible snapshot of what could’ve been. Of course, I’ll be summarizing it, but I highly recommend you watch it for yourself HERE. I omitted some things, but here’s a summary of what the video went over, mainly focused on what DIDN’T make the Ziegler Cut:

• You are a runner, exploring Tau-Ceti IV, looking for Artifacts, Implants, and Weapons for your character.

  
  

• You would be able to visually represent yourself in different ways, leaning into whatever playstyle you want.

  
  

• Drop into persistent zones, you’ll never know what you’ll find.

  
  

• A picture that Barrett was painting (around 2:05) seemed to imply that Compilers were originally meant to be on the colony maps.

  
  

• “What if one team finds this alien key… places it on some altar… they get memorialized for opening the next zone… they have to figure out how to unlock that for everyone else.”

  
  

• Lots of talk about artifacts. I’ll talk about those in a bit. We know a little bit about these, but… not much.

  
  

• Security was non-negotiable. Lol

  
  

Of course, most of this did not make the retail version. I’ll talk about customizable runners in a later section, but the three main points I’d like to discuss are the Persistent Servers/Matches, the World’s First stuff, and Artifacts.

Persistent Servers:

This one is super interesting to me. The idea was to have matches running basically forever; you’d just spawn in with your own timer (oxygen). Back in February of 2025, I wrote about some information I had that came from some focus groups. Part of that information went over the scrapped idea that the longer you stay on the map, the better your rewards would be. While that idea polled well, I’m more than confident that the idea didn’t play out too well in execution. Interestingly, the information also included a bit about how multiple maps had multiple sections. When you queue in, you spawn in one, then move around the others doing quests and other mechanics. Which brings me to…

World’s First stuff:

From what I could tell, these “sections” would be unlocked through one team’s efforts in solving a puzzle/mechanic, and they’d be immortalized in some way/shape/form. While this is more well-known, this concept did NOT play well in testing. I’m sure you could point to a bunch of different factors, but I’d wager that a reward like memorialization requires a puzzle difficult enough to justify it, and they weren’t able to live up to that. That being said, I LOVE the idea of in-game immortalization, and this feature is one I wish we could’ve seen fully fleshed out.

It’s important to note that the spirit of unlocking zones did live on in the Cryo Archive ARG. While that felt more time-gated/hand-holdy than what the original vision implied, it’s something that gives the game such a unique layer of depth.

Artifacts:

Artifacts were this mysterious item that was going to act as the premier loot in this version of Marathon. We do actually have some leftover strings in the April Alpha, but they don’t tell us too much. We know there were going to be Red, Blue, and Yellow artifacts, all coming in Minor, Major, and Prime versions. They could be combined mid-game, and it seems to ping you on the map when you have one. Again, we have no idea how this would’ve really played out (or what they even did), but the concept seemed to have been funneled into Marsh’s Unstable Sample/Temporal Fragment event. They’re visually similar and would’ve operated similarly (You would also have to stabilize the artifacts).

Before I go on, I’d like to say that while I do believe that the original vision in concept is something I REALLY wish we received, I’m more than happy that Barrett was removed from the project. Say what you will about the vision we received, but Barrett had to go. I’d also like to reiterate that while we don’t have exact details, many of the scrapped concepts did not playtest well at all. A lot of Barrett’s vision was simply not feasible/fun in execution, at least not for an extraction shooter. Maybe the team will return to some of the ideas, who knows.

Joe Ziegler

Around June 2023, Marathon received its greatest shake-up. Amidst mass layoffs and the then-unclear firing of Chris Barrett, former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler was brought on as the new Marathon Game Director. With this announcement, many were worried about the changes that were about to come. Anti-hero shooter sentiment was at an all-time high, and the general assumption was that Marathon would begin to be influenced by Ziegler’s time working on Valorant.

After the deleted ViDoc in May 2023, we had radio silence until Ziegler announced in March 2024 that he had been working on the game as its director for the past nine months. At the time, we knew that sentiment at Bungie was bleak, with many developers not confident in the 2025 release date. With rumors of a creator playtest not being greatly received, it was clear the team had their work cut out for them.

Before we move on, I’ve been sitting on some details from a mid-2024 build of the game that I think sheds some interesting light on the transition between the two distinct visions. Let’s go over some interesting points:

• Map bosses seemed to have unique loot tied to them. Whether that means unique, as in the guns we have now, or unique like a D1 strike boss is unknown.

  
  

• Enemies used to be “tiered”. For example, Compilers were Tier 2. Alongside the fact that Compilers were supposed to be enemies on Marsh implies that they used to be less of a “raid boss” and more of a common enemy.

  
  

• There used to be a (universal?) double jump upgrade.

  
  

• At the time, oxygen as a concept was scrapped due to poor playtest feedback. However, they were still adamant about the idea that the longer you stay in the match, the harder it gets + loot gets better. More on that in a bit.

  
  

• The shift from customizable characters to classes/heroes was already well on its way, with Thief, Stealth (Assassin/Void), and “Mercenary” all being playable runners at the time, with two others still being developed.

  
  

• Thief used to be able to shoot/look around corners and was able to pick locked boxes, bypassing key requirements (once per match).

  
  

Of course, none of these made the full game. Despite that, it gives us a great glimpse into how the game transformed over the years in development. Tidbits like this are just pieces of a huge picture that we will never be able to see fully, so it’s important to savor what we do see!

September 2024 was when we got our first real glimpse of what the new Marathon will look like, thanks to an article by Paul Tassi. At this point, rumors surrounding things like the new hero-based system were running rampant, and this was the first time we got more specific details. Here’s a brief summary of what Tassi went over:

• The rumored $40 price point is real, confirming the speculation. Additionally, microtransactions were set to be modeled after how Helldivers 2 handled them.

  
  

• Apex Legends was cited as the closest comparison for the new runners, albeit with more customization. We learned that there were “gameplay buffs you earn from XP that apply to all characters in different changeable skill trees”.

  
  

• This is where we learned that Barrett’s vision of a game with many intricate, world-first-like puzzles was just not coming together in practice.

  
  

• The team was fully committed to leaning into the art direction and aesthetic shown in the first trailer.

  
  

At the time, we still didn’t have many of the details, but this was enough to clear the air at least a little bit. We still had so many questions, but thankfully, we would only have to wait a month for Ziegler to release a Developer Update, clearing the air even more.

Developer Update

On October 28th, 2024, the official Marathon YouTube account uploaded a 9-minute-long developer update in which Ziegler cleared the air on a couple of things. Here’s a quick rundown of everything new we learned from this update:

• First introduction to Runners.

  
  

• Described as a “template”.

  
  

• First callback to the original Marathon trilogy. Lots of inspiration came from the eeriness/creepiness of the original games.

  
  

• Progress on different aspects of the game varied, but he assured us that things are on track.

  
  

• As an example, environments were starting to come together, but character/enemy models were still being iterated through.

  
  

• First visual look at the runner codenamed “Thief”.

  
  

• Note: Thief’s final name would have been Icon, but Thief was used after the big shift to Runner Shells.

  
  

• First visual look at the runner codenamed “Stealth” (Void/Assassin).

  
  

• “It’s (Stealth) probably a little too strong…” lol

  
  

• Announced that playtests would be expanded greatly in 2025.

  
  

While this update did not tell us much, it was the first official communication from the team since Ziegler announced his involvement with the game seven months ago. The Thief and Assassin renders were enough to keep the community going for a while, but it would be lying to say people weren’t worried about several topics, mainly the hero-based runner system. We simply didn’t have enough information about the game to be confident about it again, and we wouldn’t get any more information for a few more months.

The next bit of information would come from me! On February 17th, 2025, I released some tidbits of information I’ve heard over the past months. A lot of the details were from a very strange transitional period between Barrett’s and Ziegler’s visions for the game, so it’s mostly outdated, but it was good information to have:

• At the time, Marathon had almost a cel-shaded look.

  
  

• Side note, I got flamed so hard for this on reveal, “ermm, it is actually heavily globally illuminated,” whatever. It did kind of look cel-shaded on reveal.

  
  

• Bungie was big on the idea that the longer you stay in a map, the harder it’ll get, and your rewards will be better in turn.

  
  

• While this was greatly received in focus groups, this concept ultimately was scrapped alongside other Barrett-era staples.

  
  

• Will have multiple maps with multiple sections, the idea being that you’d spawn in one of the sections and progress through each one while looting/doing quests.

  
  

• Again, Barrett-era scraps.

  
  

• What we now know as Dire Marsh was described almost like a cross between Venus and parts of Io (From D1/2)

  
  

• No indication on whether premium currency will be earnable for free, but they are being very sensitive to MTX with a heavy emphasis on figuring out fair pricing.

  
  

• Bungie was actually pretty interested in competitive play, even asking focus groups whether they’d be interested in watching Marathon as an esports game.

  
  

• Nobody liked that idea.

  
  

Again, while a majority of these were either changed or scrapped entirely, it was something! We weren’t entirely sure when we’d get our first taste at actual gameplay (or any other communication for that matter), but we had a good feeling we’d hear about it soon. Lo and behold, on April 3rd, 2025, a bomb was dropped:

Multiple Marathon-related websites went live, plunging the community into another ARG. This time, we were tasked with hacking UESC (think of them as the in-game government) terminals and services, solving puzzles until the community came together to align communication satellites to “send” a signal that ended up being a teaser for the gameplay reveal trailer. I won’t go into details of the ARG, but I’ll again recommend Jake the Alright’s recap videos (Part 1, Part 2). The ARG served as wonderful marketing for the game, bringing in both people who have been following the game since day one as well as people who have never heard of Marathon before. It really was an exhilarating time. I participated in this one, and the sense of accomplishment the community felt when we finally solved it was amazing.

On April 12th, 2025, we got the full reveal of the game as well as a release date of September 23rd, 2025. Reactions were mixed to say the least… For the most part, they were all enunciated by the April Alpha Playtest (which we’ll get to next), but sentiment already wasn’t great going into it. Looking back, this was around the time the anti-Marathon grifter sentiment started to really kick in gear. Alongside the gameplay reveal, we received a beautiful cinematic short, written and directed by Alberto Mielgo. If you haven’t watched that yet, go do that NOW! It’s truly fantastic. Despite confidence not being terribly high, the community was excited. We finally got a look at Marathon, and we were all eager to hop in and see what it was like to play. Which brings us to…

April Alpha

The culmination of the reveal was an announcement for the first Marathon Alpha. Initially, this playtest was going to be closed under NDA. As it was currently standing, the reception to the gameplay reveal was not spectacular. While the ARG and the lead-up to the reveal were very well received, the gameplay trailers they released simply did not excite much of the community. This was an issue for Bungie, and in an attempt to gain trust and support, they decided to drop the NDA and effectively make the playtest open to all, a decision that would ultimately backfire on them.

Opinions on the April Alpha were mixed. Some common complaints included:

• Pushback on the hero-based system (Runners)

  
  

• Graphics

  
  

• No solo queue/proximity chat

  
  

• Aim assist on keyboard and mouse

  
  

• General gameplay loop (big on the ttk)

  
  

Of course, Bungie didn’t try to hide the fact that it was very much an Alpha product; it was clearly underbaked. With the planned release in just a few months and radio silence/unclear information on things like story, the Alpha put a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths (including me). All of these issues led Bungie to admit that they needed some more time to polish the game, and Marathon was delayed to March 5th, 2026. While I don’t believe this was the sole reason the game was delayed, one could argue that the straw that broke the camel’s back was a certain plagiarism scandal…

The Antireal Art Scandal

As many of you are well aware, a few people spotted decals around the maps during the April Alpha that were taken directly from Antireal’s work. As if a bomb had been set off, it seemed you could not go a day on social media without hearing about “Art Raiders”. I won’t go too deep into this, but the culprit was a former Bungie artist who included the textures in a sheet that made it to the game. While I can’t elaborate too much, I do believe that said artist included these textures during the mood board/preplanning phase of texturing and submitted it as their own work. If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I’m a sucker for the intricacies of Corporate Process, and this incident really highlighted the importance of a thorough art approval process. Of course, they are different teams, but it would be facetious not to mention that this is FAR from Bungie’s first plagiarism scandal. I won’t get into it here, but there have been multiple cases where plagiarized art appeared in Destiny 2.

I don’t want to speculate too heavily on the deeper causes of this issue, but the Marathon Development Team has remained committed to preventing something like this from ever happening again, and so far they’ve been true to their word- I’ve been checking 😉. Legally, there was some back and forth between Sony and Antireal, but the situation was “resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to [her] satisfaction”. While I believe that they’ve more or less recovered from this specific incident, the “Plagiarism Will Make Me God” line can still be heard being spouted by grifters and trolls. She is currently included in the art credits as a Visual Design Consultant.

Delay Era

Before we touch upon the closed playtests, I wanted to loop back to the delay. I believe that Bungie’s official statement frames the next few months of development well and is important context to have when talking about the next few months of development. Here are the focus points Bungie highlighted as priorities as they entered a heads-down development period (taken straight from their update on June 17th, 2025):

• Upping the Survival Game

  
  

• More challenging and engaging AI encounters

  
  

• More rewarding runs, with new types of loot and dynamic events

  
  

• Making combat more tense and strategic

  
  

• Doubling down on the Marathon Universe

  
  

• Increased visual fidelity

  
  

• More narrative and environmental storytelling to discover and interact with

  
  

• A darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy

  
  

• Adding more social experiences

  
  

• A better player experience for solo/duos

  
  

• Prox chat, so social stories can come to life

  
  

Other than announcing sign-ups for the various closed playtests that would occur over the coming months, that was our last official communication for a few months. I won’t dwell too much on the closed playtests, partially because Bungie would kill me if I talked about them in detail, but there really wasn’t anything that didn’t make it into the full game. Through the playtests, Bungie tested all sorts of things relating to the focus points documented in their delay announcement. A few others and I covered a lot of the details throughout the various playtests, and while Bungie did get quite mad at me more than once, I’m glad I was able to provide the community with semi-consistent news during the last drought we would face. They tackled nearly every common complaint the community had during the April alpha, including a well-received rebrand of the heroes, which I believe to be one of the most impressive things Bungie’s marketing team has ever done (more on that in a bit).

Besides the excitement of learning new things about the game with every playtest, the number one thing that stood out to me was the responsiveness of the developers. No matter how large the playtest was, there would be developers or directors active all the time in the NDA chats. So many questions were answered, so many gameplay questions were proposed. I’m sure my point of view is quite narrow, but the involvement and responsiveness were like nothing I’ve seen before, a behavior that would continue to this day.

Arc Raiders

Marathon initially faced an incredibly important issue that we haven’t talked about yet: the extraction shooter genre itself. I’ll save my personal opinions on that, but until Arc Raiders, extraction shooters were always seen as extremely hardcore and almost inaccessible to casual players. The main game perpetuating this is Escape from Tarkov, a game that I’d argue is the public’s textbook example of what an extraction shooter plays like. A pressing issue Bungie faced with Marathon was deciding how “hardcore” the game should be. Thankfully, they ended up leaning towards the Tarkov side of things, greatly lowering the TTK seen during the April Alpha and generally raising the difficulty of the game. I don’t believe this would have been as good an idea if Arc Raiders hadn’t released first.

Embark’s Arc Raiders was a smash hit. They successfully created a game in the extraction shooter genre that appealed to the casual side of gamers, diminishing the common stereotype that all extraction shooters were hardcore. This brought a wave of new interest to the genre, which was great news for Bungie. Arc Raiders did have a problem, though; it was almost TOO casual. For many, Arc Raiders was more arcade-y than anything, leaving players frustrated. Most importantly, the game practically discourages PvP, alienating a lot of players. With leaks and rumors spreading about how much harder and PvP-focused Marathon has become, it’s safe to say that Bungie positioned itself perfectly to scratch the hardcore itch left by Arc Raiders.

The Road to Release

On December 15th, 2025, Bungie broke their silence and officially re-introduced Marathon with the Vision of Marathon ViDoc, confidently highlighting everything they’ve changed since April. I don’t believe I need to summarize everything that was revealed, but from immense graphical upgrades to a new scavenger runner, they tackled nearly every common complaint and made Marathon look like a completely different game. This was finally what the community needed to regain trust in the team and be truly hooked.

With a newly announced launch period of March 2026 and the final date of March 5th being announced shortly after, Bungie finally started its pre-launch marketing push, and until launch, we had almost weekly announcements revealing bits and pieces of the game. While a lot of it wasn’t “new” to those who kept up with leaks, Marathon at long last felt close, a weird feeling that I can’t quite put into words. In early February 2026, an open preview weekend was announced for the week before launch, and the community finally got its first taste of the game. From personal experience, I remember being floored at how different the game felt compared to April. It truly was a night or day difference, and I was fully convinced to preorder. On March 5th, 2026, Marathon was released. Before we go on, I’d like to talk about a less-appreciated action Bungie took that very much impressed me: the successful rebrand of Runners.

Runners vs Runner Shells

The concept of runners initially debuted much closer in concept to your traditional Hero. You would essentially play as the character (Runner) itself, with each one planned to have distinct personalities (and backstories? That’s still a little vague to me, but signs point towards yes). One of the biggest complaints from the April Alpha was the lack of personalization/customizable characters, and I believe Bungie understood that tying runners to a more conventional Hero formula would only exacerbate the issue. Of course, Bungie couldn’t shift away from Runners as a concept this late into development, so after a lot of deliberation, testing, and conversations with playtesters during the closed-alpha era, Bungie reintroduced Runners as Runner Shells.

The beauty of this rebrand lies in the fact that they didn’t actually change anything about the system itself, just how it’s framed. To further aid the common complaint of a lack of customization, they’ve framed Runners almost like a product, with each Runner Shell being classified by three things: Shell Model, Series, and Style. The Shell Model is the main classification, indicating what class the Runner is. We haven’t seen any new Shell Series (i.e., every Vandal skin uses the Glitch Series) so far, but these will determine the in-game model of your Shell, though we have confirmation that we will be getting new ones in the future, fingers crossed for season two! Finally, the Shell Style is essentially the “paint job” that goes on top of the Series. Each skin has a different combination of those three. Taking the Assassin deluxe edition Shell as an example:

• Shell Model: Assassin

  
  

• Shell Series: Void

  
  

• Shell Style: Midnight Decay

  
  

More subtly, in both the Vision of Marathon ViDoc and the Runner Shells overview video, there was a much stronger emphasis on talking about Runners as archetypes of play, with a heavier investment into how important cores and implants are in customizing and shaping your gameplay, something that was lacking in previous communication.

Of course, at the end of the day, this change really is nothing more than flavor text attached to skins, but I’m honestly floored with how effective it was in quelling a lot of complaints surrounding Runners. Obviously, there are still many, including me, who would have preferred fully customizable characters, but by changing the way they were framed, you’re no longer playing as someone else. The story now revolves around you, not Icon or Aux (Thief/Triage) or whatever shell you’d be playing as.

Marathon (The Opinionated Part)

This isn’t meant as a review, but I did want to talk about my opinion on the game. If you don’t care, just go straight to the next section. Like many, I am absolutely in love with Marathon’s art style. Even if I were to get completely sick of the game itself, I can never see myself being detached from the game just for that alone- it’s why I created tciv.art in the first place! Side note, I’m blown away by how well the site has been received. I’m so happy I was able to provide a platform that so many people use, and I’m committed to updating it for the foreseeable future! There really is nothing like Marathon, and it’s safe to say it’s visually one of my favorite pieces of media ever.

Shifting to the game itself, it’s easily the best extraction shooter I’ve ever played. As expected from Bungie, the game just feels really good. I love every aspect of the environment, audio, lore, etc. There’s so much to praise. Perimeter and Dire Marsh are fine maps, of course, but Outpost and Cryo Archive blow me away. In classic Bungie fashion, they really shine when it comes to crafting gameplay experiences around mechanics, and it shows with these two maps. I won’t say that Marathon gave me The Feeling that Destiny does (you all know the one), but I don’t think I really needed it to. Maybe I’d enjoy it more or less if it were a PvE-only game or whatever, but I’m very happy with what we got.

One last thing I’d like to note is the responsiveness of the Marathon team. If you’ve played Destiny, you’re probably aware of the horrible cycle of the Destiny team constantly reassuring the community that they’re listening, only for issues to be unaddressed for weeks, if not months. Of course, I’ll give them grace because Destiny 2’s version of Tiger Engine is notoriously slow to develop on, but the speed at which the Marathon team acts is wild. Nearly every large issue with the game gets addressed within the week it’s brought up. This, mixed with constant game mode testing and consistent communication, really feels like dating someone who treats you well after an abusive relationship. The Marathon team has definitely healed my Destiny 2 trauma.

Conclusion and the Future

Congratulations! You’ve finally reached the end! I love this game, and I’ve been infatuated with the behind-the-scenes of it all for quite some time. Bungie has repeatedly assured the community that it is committed to supporting the game for years to come. I’m writing this a little bit through Season One, and I’m very excited to see Sentinel, Night Marsh, and the Cradle in Season Two. As it stands, I’m not entirely sure what they have in the pipeline. I know there’s at least one more unannounced runner being developed, but nothing on maps- though I have a feeling Night Marsh is going to be more exciting than people think 😉.

That’s all from me! I hope you enjoyed reading my (sometimes) rambling thoughts on the game’s history. I’m sure you learned a thing or two! As always, my DMs on Twitter or Discord (@rocksiza) are always open for questions, clarifications, etc. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!

See you starside,

-Rocksiza