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Marathon
Bungie
Tuesday was a really wild day for Bungie, where they debuted new Destiny 2 Into the Light content while also announcing a game director change from Marathon to get ahead of a pending IGN story.
IGN Rebekah Valentine published an article on the state of Bungie and a significant change, that former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler, who joined Bungie in 2022, was now Marathon game director, replacing Christopher Barrett.
What’s strange about this is the timeline, as Ziegler says he’s been director of the game for nine months, which was never announced until this IGN article forcibly revealed it, and that would have been just a few weeks after Barrett debuted Marathon at a showcase in May 2023. No reason is given for the change, and Barrett is now simply listed as “Executive Creative Director” at Bungie, with unclear responsibilities.
But what caught the attention of players themselves was a note about an apparent change in direction for Marathon, that the game is “moving away from customized player characters in favor of a cast of selectable heroes.”
The idea here seems to be that instead of the promised player customization talked about during the reveal, this would be a hero-Instead, it’s based on a pull-out game that channels Ziegler’s old game, Valorant.
valorant
Riot
While games like Valorant and Apex Legends have seen success with the hero shooter model, I haven’t seen a single positive comment about this supposed change from anyone, namely a large number of Destiny players and content creators who have expressed disappointment or concern about the idea. .
It was always going to be a difficult task trying to convert Destiny players to a PvP mining game, but now at least Destiny has been focusing on player customization for ten years, from gear to appearance. If Marathon abandons that in favor of Valorant, Overwatch, or Apex style heroes with set kits, that’s a big turn off for the entire community.
One idea is that Bungie is doing this to distance itself from Tarkov, the other higher-profile PvP extraction game, but I think there are probably other things at play. First, this is clearly Ziegler’s skill set, and if he is now the game director, it may be a vision he is more comfortable with compared to Barrett’s custom concept. Secondly, my gut tells me this may have something to do with monetization, since hero games sell extremely expensive skins, and Valorant gets insanely expensive with things like weapon skin packs or Apex’s Heirloom system . That may be the kind of monetization Bungie wants and needs here with Marathon.
From the outside, switching to a hero-based game doesn’t seem wise. Doing that forces you to compete with existing big games, even if you have a different concept with mining. And while you might be able to seek out new players, you’ll instantly lose the interest of many Destiny players who’ve been with you for a decade, and before that, Halo players, who this won’t be anything like either.
Again, Bungie hasn’t confirmed this, but Ziegler says more from Marathon and with Bungie will be shown soon. needing To release the game in 2025, there’s almost no way I’m going to change course again now.
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