Marathon 2025 - Bungie's new AAAA Extraction shooter

[Disc]

Chiming in again to say that post-launch layoffs were inevitable but I hope you Destiny losers are happy that your seething about a TEN YEAR OLD GAME ending live service resulted in a massive campaign against an extremely polished and entertaining (albeit massively overdeveloped/over-budget) shooter, ultimately resulting in positions being eliminated.

Steam reviews are clearly being tanked by weirdo diehards that are throwing a pissfit because they can't get NeW cOnTeNt, weird twitter accounts exist solely to talk shit about the game, and there are entire subreddits dedicated to shitting on Marathon. I'm sorry the $60 game that you got to enjoy for 10 years doesn't have new content coming (you can still play TEN YEARS of content lol) and sorry you're going to have to wait a bit longer for a new one (if the studio survives).

I basically gave up on multiplayer FPS two years ago but the style, low price ($40), deep lore and commitment to tasteful paid content (no rappers in the game) made me give this game a shot and it is one of my favorite games to come out in years. Tense to the point of reaching survival horror, great population of squad fills with mics, fun inventory management, a fun PvPvE blend, season wipes, and frequent updates have made this an absolute breath of fresh air.

Hopped on for two hours last night with some friends that haven't played all season and we hit Outpost with pretty basic gear. Ended up out-strategizing two different elite teams, stole two keys and loaded up on great gear before having one of the most tense exfils I can remember, barely surviving as a team tried to snipe us from a nearby rooftop.

Probably no convincing you at this point but the friends that haven't played for two months cannot wait to hop back on tonight and try another few runs. Gamers are such whiny babies and negative commentary always resonates further than positive feedback.

Lol. I played destiny for like one week at release and one week around the time of... i think forsaken? I am purely here for the spectacle.

The final update was announced on the 21st of May. Marathon was already at ~12k weekly peak players by that point. Even then, bungo didn't have to sandwich their first major marathon update between the announcement post of Destiny 2's final update and the actual final update.

In any case, the vast majority of the layoffs will be the destiny team getting made redundant. This has been confirmed and been known for a long time. Marathon will also be affected, but again, that was set in motion well before the destiny fans got pissed.

The fact is that Marathon released somewhat late into a crowded and yet niche market with no immediately obvious selling points within that market aside from an unpopular artstyle. It had no additional game modes to attract a more casual audience or keep it's current one when they were frustrated with the main game. It's biggest qualitative item is tooltip worldbuilding every player not named creaturestorm never gave a shit about. And despite the fact that they had a lot of time to revise and add content thanks to that little plagiarism issue, the content pipeline dried up almost immediately. Probably because of that 'don't overdeliver' dipshit that is finally gone at last.

Bungie's bed is entirely of its own making. It bet the house on chasing a trend rather than using the post-final-shape time to sunset the current game and start preparing for it's sequel with their already captured audience, and then made numerous mistakes to piss off just about everyone involved. Even if it is the best extraction shooter ever, that was never going to support a company with an 850 headcount that can't budget to save its life. This is a company that had an internally accepted as dead old product, and a heavily struggling new product, and decided to spend weeks if not months gaslighting their own employees into working on D2 content that would never be released. Pure waste of time and money just to not risk the possibility that a ten year old dead game wouldn’t be getting closed.

 

[creaturestorm]

If Marathon still exists on January 1st 2027, I will personally buy "True and Honest" for @creaturestorm

I think this game is going to last at least 1 full year, but it's not thanks to any one other than Sony.

 

[StacticShock]

This is a company that had an internally accepted as dead old product, and a heavily struggling new product, and decided to spend weeks if not months gaslighting their own employees into working on D2 content that would never be released. Pure waste of time and money just to not risk the possibility that a ten year old dead game wouldn’t be getting closed.

you mean the destiny infinity shit? lmao.
double lmao once you remember that devs have actively complained that the engine was too old and they'd need to leave it running for like a full day for them to do a simple render.

 

[Tanner Glass]

How many does Bungie employ? I can only find stuff saying they have <1000 employees, but hopefully these cuts run very, very deep. Break out those "Learn to mine coal" memes.

Bungie's Layoff in 2023 took them from 1,295 to 1074 (approximately) and then they shed another 100 to get to 974 (approximately).

This layoff is rumored to be targeting 50% of the entire studio, but the WARN paperwork specified 292 at least. 682 is now the max size - but they could have laid people off in quantities in some locations that do not require WARN reporting, contractors, interns, and so on. I think 50% is optimistic because 50% would put them still at 487, which is still fucking massive compared to a normal studio (Sony's Crown Jewel, Santa Monica Studios is rumored to be 250 to 500 and Astrobot's studio has less then 100) in Sony's stable, so I think the cuts will be even deeper.

I cannot believe how bad Sony got fleeced by Bungie on this one - the old shareholders must have been laughing until they cried when the signed paperwork cleared and they got $3.6 billion for a studio dying a horrible death. With how bad SONY is doing as a whole, this is a significant and substantial waste of money.

 

[ScurvyRat]

Hate to break it to you
Wyświetl załącznik 9193379
Marathon is going to truck on for like a decade in maintenance mode. Sony will do anything for those sweet sweet microtransactions.

would you like to make a bet on it?
I'm in for 20, whats 20 more?

 

[The Ugly One]

Chiming in again to say that post-launch layoffs were inevitable but I hope you Destiny losers are happy that your seething about a TEN YEAR OLD GAME ending live service resulted in a massive campaign against an extremely polished and entertaining (albeit massively overdeveloped/over-budget) shooter, ultimately resulting in positions being eliminated.

I am extremely glad that a bunch of smug faggots lost their jobs. I only wish Destiny had failed this quickly.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I cannot believe how bad Sony got fleeced by Bungie on this one - the old shareholders must have been laughing until they cried when the signed paperwork cleared and they got $3.6 billion for a studio dying a horrible death. With how bad SONY is doing as a whole, this is a significant and substantial waste of money.

Remember getting Spun off from Activision was going to usher in a Golden Age where Destiny would become the greatest series ever because it was Activision that was fucking everything up...

 

[cottage crow]

Bungie: RAPED
Sow status: REAPED
Employees: REDEEMED

 

[A Proud Black Woman]

I sure hope all the Black employees keep their jobs at Bungie because I AM BLACK!

 

[Kane Lives]

Remember getting Spun off from Activision was going to usher in a Golden Age where Destiny would become the greatest series ever because it was Activision that was fucking everything up...

Something something Miss me yet?.jpg by Bobby Kotick

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

WOAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BUDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

WE GOT US A REDUCTION. PRAY THERE WON'T BE MORE BUNGIE (there will)

Destiny losers are happy that your seething about a TEN YEAR OLD GAME

Somebody lost their job or had friends at Bungie.

Everything that happened to bungie was a result of their own actions and they have only themselves to blame.

E:

Enjoy your circlejerk, I'm gonna hit a run before I go out with friends tonight.

lol

 

[DeadwastePrime]

not sure why people are celebrating when the people responsible for this thing existing (the executives) are still working for the company and arent having their lungs pulled out of them while theyre still alive by the people who they shafted from the company (actual developers)

 

[moocow]

not sure why people are celebrating when the people responsible for this thing existing (the executives) are still working for the company and arent having their lungs pulled out of them while theyre still alive by the people who they shafted from the company (actual developers)

I do wish we'd re-establish the tradition of torching the factory on the way out when the owners shaft the workers. Or at least hanging the owners if people aren't feeling like dealing with ash hanging in the air all week.

 

[Disc]

not sure why people are celebrating when the people responsible for this thing existing (the executives) are still working for the company and arent having their lungs pulled out of them while theyre still alive by the people who they shafted from the company (actual developers)

Because

1. Several of them are getting fired, like Justin Truman the studio head (the guy behind the infamous train station analogy/'we can't risk overdelivering, that'll set player expectations too high!' speech). Can't exactly make a much bigger head roll than that one.
2. Bungie is a company heavily infested with DEI rot and many members of staff are true believers, so it's not as big of a loss as it might seem. The team that made Halo Halo and even the ones that made Destiny Destiny are long gone.
   
3. There was no way a company which overspends that much doesn't have a lot of bloat, so basically any sustainable model was going to result in mass firings.
4. While I don't think it's as open and shut as it's often framed as, if there are genuinely good employees there they'll either find employment in another company, an adjacent industry, or in indie games.

 

[Oliver Onions]

Here’s to Bungies future as a small upstart development team on a shoe string budget

This would unironically be the best thing for Bungie, if that small team was full of passionate creatives and not pozzed ideologues who hate their own audience.

Probably no convincing you at this point but the friends that haven't played for two months cannot wait to hop back on tonight and try another few runs.

BLAST HAVER™ DETECTED. Congratulations on becoming the thread's new @creaturestorm we eagerly await your buckbreak post in a few weeks once the bloom is off the rose for your dead gay slop game.

Can't exactly make a much bigger head roll than that one.

I will not be satisfied until Hermann Hulst has a pike driven through his asshole and out of his mouth and is displayed on the front lawn of Sony headquarters.

 

[Safir]

https://x.com/KyleBlessing/status/2065509158502150204

They're so incompetent they couldn't even format their "don't"s correctly.

Don'ts
Avoid talking about [politics] <- this is a positive statement
Talk about and/or compare to a competitor <- this should have the "don't" applied
Avoid talking about Destiny 3 <- this is another positive statement

This often happens in postings about deboonkings, it took incompetent gender studies majors over a decade to partially adopt a format that makes it clear which is the "myth" and which is the deboonking, but they're just cranking out clickbait at fractional cents per word. Getting the wording of your commercial deal wrong is something special.

 

[The Ugly One]

not sure why people are celebrating when the people responsible for this thing existing (the executives) are still working for the company and arent having their lungs pulled out of them while theyre still alive by the people who they shafted from the company (actual developers)

Bungie purged every employee who wasn't a loathsome faggot a very long time ago.

 

[Tanner Glass]

not sure why people are celebrating when the people responsible for this thing existing (the executives) are still working for the company and arent having their lungs pulled out of them while theyre still alive by the people who they shafted from the company (actual developers)

The people that are responsible for these decisions cashed out a long time ago, probably got a nice chunk of one of the buyouts and skipped town. The magic has been gone from Bungie for decades so why would I care who gets to loot the corpse?

It's not like Sony could have put that $3.6 Billion into anything good - considering what the release schedule is looking like.

 

[creaturestorm]

BLAST HAVER™ DETECTED. Congratulations on becoming the thread's new @creaturestorm

How dare you

 

[Jarch6]

I think this game is going to last at least 1 full year, but it's not thanks to any one other than Sony.

It makes sense as it allows them to slow roll the “hey guys Pete Parsons completely outkiked us into flushing 3.6 billion dollars down the toilet because Bungie is worth fucking nothing.” If they completely shitcan Marathon then they can’t justify why they shouldn’t impairment loss the studio down to 0 right now which would incense the shareholders into demanding some upper management scalps.