All signs are pointing to a Marathon delay
Bungie recently suffered another blow for Marathon, with reports indicating that employees are concerned for the game internally after the company was found to have included stolen art in the recent alpha build. Now, Sony might be preparing to delay the game.
According to Colin Moriarty on Sacred Symbols, his PlayStation focused podcast, someone at Sony had told him that marketing plans for Marathon have already been cancelled in some markets.
It had also been reported recently that Bungie executives were having urgent meetings with Sony about Marathon last week, shortly before this new information came to light. It has also been claimed that plans for public playtests have been put on hold.
With all of the other issues currently surrounding the game, including a full review of all in-game art and the creation of new assets, it is looking increasingly unlikely that Marathon will ship in September as planned.
If Bungie does delay the game, it will need to reconsider some crucial feedback from the alpha playtests. People want proximity chat in an extraction game and currently, there are no plans for that. Beyond that, people want to see more content for a $40 price tag, it doesn’t seem like four maps at launch is going to cut it. Depending on the extent of the delay, Bungie may be able to consider more drastic gameplay changes, like more PvE encounters within maps to help focus the action.
KitGuru Says: Sony’s acquisition of Bungie has not been much of a success so far. Hopefully things can turn around but for now, Bungie is staying pretty quiet on all things Marathon related.
