You’ve likely heard the controversy, no doubt encountered Bungie boycotters, and have either swore off Bungie games entirely or are at least open to what comes next from the studio in their upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon. Whatever the case for you in particular, you clearly care enough to read this article so let’s cut to the chase.
Bungie has announced that Marathon is set to launch in March 2026, carrying a target price of $39.99 / €39.99 / £34.99, which—given Bungie’s recent history—immediately triggered widespread speculation about how many Season Passes, micro-transaction store tokens, and ethically questionable “engagement incentives” will quietly be stacked on top like predatory DLC nesting dolls.
According to Bungie, this new, definitely-not-your-typical-live-service title will roll out “free” updates throughout its first year (“free” but you have to pay $40 up front), including new maps, new Runner shells, rotating events, and the introduction of Season 1’s exploration of the UESC Marathon’s Cryo Archive. They also emphasized that Rewards Passes will not expire, and players will be able to purchase and unlock past passes at their leisure—essentially resurrecting a Destiny 2 system they’d already broken, abandoned, brought back, broken again, and then defended time and time again.
THOUGHT: Destiny 2 Renegades costs $39.99. Marathon, a “full game” is releasing at the same price of $39.99. How much content are we going to get with a purchase, really? Sounds to me like we are paying for a season for a free-to-play game that is masking itself as a full-priced AAA game. Bungie specifically mentions “Season 1”. In year 2, are we going to be expected to pay an additional $40?
The announcement arrived alongside a 23-minute ViDoc, which, to Bungie’s credit, does show relatively significant visual and gameplay improvement—at least in the sense that it looks marginally more like a video game and less like a pitch deck for a cyberpunk NFT marketplace. But even the ViDoc’s small wins weren’t enough to stem the tide of skepticism because, frankly, Bungie is out of goodwill. Not low. Not running thin. Gone. Evaporated. Buried in an unmarked grave behind the studio.
Fans haven’t forgotten the plagiarism scandal that sent shockwaves through the community, nor have they forgotten how many times this has happened across Bungie’s flagship title over the years. Add on years of tone-deaf communication, broken promises, anti-consumer monetization pivots, layoffs, and a Destiny 2 content strategy so chaotic it has nearly killed their game at least a half dozen times over, and you have a studio that’s managed to alienate even its most loyal diehards.
At this point, huge portions of the gaming community are openly rooting for Marathon to fail—not because they want bad games, but because they want accountability from a studio that once meant something. Bungie’s reputation is now so corroded that even when Marathon looks slick, polished, or genuinely fun, the first reaction isn’t excitement—it’s “Okay, but how are they going to screw us this time?” For many, the trust has been burned, salted, irradiated, and mailed into the sun.
Meanwhile, Destiny 2 continues to reach all-time low player counts, occasionally twitching upward for brief moments—like with the recent launch of Renegades—before settling right back into the basement. If anything, this latest announcement only reinforces what has become more obvious with each passing month: Sony is going to have to step in and take control of Bungie if the studio is going to be saved from the leadership decisions that dragged it into this mess in the first place.
Because as much as Marathon might end up looking good or playing well, Bungie is a studio running on ashes, fractured trust, and the lingering fumes of a legacy it has repeatedly set on fire. And unless something drastic changes behind the scenes, Marathon may end up being remembered not as a comeback story, but as the last gasp of a developer that forgot what made people believe in it to begin with.
