What We Should See And What We Won't In Bungie's ‘Marathon' Reveal

Forbes

11-04-2025

Marathon
Bungie about to reveal Marathon in full, no more years-old trailers, concept art snippets or elaborate ARGs. It's a real premiere, live tomorrow in a 1 PM ET stream that Bungie has really gone all out for, building sets and everything.
I wanted to talk about what we know we're going to see, what I hope we'll see and what we won't see from the show tomorrow.
It's a gameplay reveal. So gameplay, obviously. I believe this will be the first in-engine footage from the game, as that was not the case with the first trailer or even the brief teaser of the dead runner that we saw as an announcement of this event. It's on an upgraded Tiger engine, so what Bungie always uses and not Unreal 5 or anything, and we'll see how that looks now, eight years after Destiny 2 launched with it. The art direction of the game is obviously amazing, but how does it translate to the actual game engine?
I would expect a full-on explanation and look at the extraction concept, any Bungie twists on it, at least some full looks at runners and their kits, along with how they can be modified to be more unique gameplay-wise than traditional hero shooter characters.
There will also be an embargo lifting after this event that will allow dozens and dozens of creators, journalists and industry figures to give their impressions after playing the game in a recent event Bungie hosted. They were only given access to a portion of the game, but we get to see what they make of it (though this will take place after the show).
Marathon
It's mostly in a similar category: Monetization. By that I mean:
Game Price: It's almost certain that Marathon will not be free-to-play. Less certain is the exact price. Guesses are around $30-40 as pulling a trigger on a full $70 live game would be…unwise. I do hope they finally clarify this, but I have my doubts they will without the game even having a release date yet.
Skins/Battle Pass Preview: What does cosmetic customization look like in this game? Comparable to Destiny? Halo? And how much is that going to cost for a skin, or different pieces, or other categories of cosmetics we don't know about yet? What's in a battle pass? How many good cosmetics there? How much is that? Do they expire?
Seasons: Unlike Destiny 2 with its episodes and seasons, it is almost impossible seasons themselves will cost money, rather the battle pass will like in similar genre games here. However, I'd like to know season length (is it the traditional three months?) and the planned cadence of adding new characters. One a season? Two a year? One every month like Marvel Rivals? (no way). Some of that info would be great.
Marathon
There was a rumor floating around that this showcase would end with the surprise stealth launch of an open beta so everyone could hop in and play.
Don't get your hopes up for that, it's not happening. What I've been told is that there will be a closed alpha sign-up discussion at the end of the show for an alpha with the largest number of spots yet, but still sort of limited in grand scheme (five figures?). I believe that alpha should launch some time in the next month unless plans have changed. I would be surprised if they announced open alpha or beta dates, or an actual release date for the full game.
There's going to be a whole lot to process here and I'll do a full breakdown after the fact. See you tomorrow.
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