As promised, Bungie hosted the first-ever livestream to properly reveal Marathon, its anticipated next title. We got to see gameplay from the extraction shooter, understand how it works on a basic level, and learn a little bit about the studio’s plans for it.
Marathon was also officially given a release date of September 23 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, supporting cross-play and cross-save with all three on day one. But how much is it going to cost?
That was one question Bungie left out of the reveal, and it’s one many of the media people in attendance couldn’t get an answer for. What the studio did confirm is that Marathon will launch as a premium title, but that it won’t be “full price.”
Speaking to Gamespot, Bungie developers also revealed that the game is going to have three maps, with the fourth coming shortly after launch. Though it is a premium title, you can also expect a battle pass. The actual price, however, was not revealed, and the developer said it will be announced later this summer.
As for the gameplay showcase itself, we got to see plenty of footage of the actual flow of matches in Marathon, and how Bungie wants to make this the most accessible extraction shooter on the market without taking away the edge that makes that style of experience exciting in the first place.
Marathon characters each have distinct abilities that essentially slot them into different classes. All players can equip shields of varying rarities, similar to Apex Legends, but damage is entirely determined by your choice of weapon. You can loot pretty much everything from the world and other players, but if you die without extracting, you lose all of it.
To help mitigate some of that frustration, Marathon allows players to be revived at any moment in the match. If any member of your three-player squad is alive, they can simply bring you back to the match by interacting with your death stash at any point.
What you do in the match itself defers depending on what you’re trying to extract out. Some faction bounties will task you with pulling off certain challenges or bringing back certain materials, while others will send you into areas occupied by the game’s AI faction. Outside of cash and usable items (like weapons/attachments), you’ll also find keys that you can either use on that run, or save for a future run.
If you want to try Marathon out before launch, Bungie is hosting a closed alpha this month that you’ll need to join the game’s official Discord server to sign up for. The build you’ll be playing will be similar to the one we’ve seen footage of over the weekend.
Though Bungie didn’t outright confirm this, the game will likely also be available for public testing between now and September, so don’t fret if you can’t get into the next closed test.
