Bungie’s first new game in over a decade finally got its full reveal today. Marathon, a new extraction shooter that is actually a reboot of the very first game Bungie released by the same name, had a big showcase featuring our first honest look at gameplay for the new shooter, and we also got the announcement for the release date.
Marathon will arrive on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on September 23, 2025, but if you’re especially keen to try it out for yourself, you can sign up for a closed alpha test later this month by joining the game’s official Discord server.
The livestream showcase for Marathon included a panel of the game’s lead developers, including game director Joe Zeigler, art director Joseph Cross, gameplay director Andrew Witts, and senior design lead Lars Bakken. Each talked about their experiences with Marathon, talking the game up between the short gameplay trailers.
Trailers that do show off some Marathon gameplay, but none of them are as effective in showing what the game actually looks like in motion than a 20 minute video that shows highlights from Bungie inviting content creators and press to play the game. In that video you’re watching a select few creator’s direct gameplay feed, and we get a much better sense of what Marathon looks like when you’re on stick.
We also got a bit more information on some of the core details of Marathon, like the four Runners that players can choose from: Void, Glitch, Blackbird, and Locus. Each runner comes with their own set of abilities that inform the playstyle you can go for with them, but you’re not limited to what kinds of weapons and load-outs you can craft, so you’re free to play how you like.
The livestream showcase ended with a bit more information on Marathon’s narrative, which will be told over seasonal updates as Marathon is a multiplayer-only game, with no dedicated single-player mode. That said, we also got confirmation that you can solo-queue in Marathon if you don’t have two other people to play with to make a full squad of three or don’t want to play with randoms.
Overall, Marathon doesn’t look like it’s doing much to distinguish itself from the already overcrowded genre of modern-day first-person shooters. Bungie’s signature brand of first-person shooting and the game’s art style certainly have a chance at making yet another extraction shooter feel fresh, but we’ll have to wait until we actually get to play it to see if it has a chance at surviving. And that’s without even mentioning the other elephant in the room, which is the fact that we still don’t know what the final price of the game will be.
