Latest news with #liveService
Forbes
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Marathon' Isn't Canceled, But It's Bad We Even Have To Ask That
Marathon Bungie Marathon cannot stop being thrown into fresh drama every few days since its controversial Closed Alpha which led to a string of reports about things going poorly internally, capped off by a revelation that an artist had plagiarized art currently still in the game. Now, we have a worrying report from Colin Moriarty on Sacred Symbols where he says that all paid marketing for Marathon this quarter has been canceled by Sony. This tracks somewhat with what I was told a little while back, though he's getting info on the Sony side (he's trustworthy) while I'm getting it on the Bungie side. I heard the entire marketing plan was thrown out and had to restart from scratch, and plans like a new trailer launching pre-orders and a big public beta a month before launch were not happening. I didn't hear anything about all paid marketing being erased, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's where things ended up. There is now talk about whether this means Marathon is delayed or even cancelled after its disastrous couple of weeks. Delayed? I'm almost positive, yes. Canceled? It's hard to see how that could happen given that it would be Sony's second obscene live service blowup in a year. Blowing up a game on the launchpad this close to release with years and hundreds of millions invested would be insanity. It's close to what happened with Concord, yes, but the difference here is that this is Bungie, not just a storied shooter studio but one that Sony paid (an absurdly overpriced) $3.6 billion for. Marathon Bungie You can't cancel it now. It's too late. You have to roll the dice, but to do that, you need at least some sort of delay to reset the narrative and polish and add…I don't know, something to the game to make it more of a draw at launch. A delay is what I think this marketing hold means because you're not going to bother spooling up a big ad campaign for a game that isn't coming out until when? Sometime in 2026, from the looks of all this. I have been on the 'delay Marathon' train before, and I still think it's the least-worst option, but my position has also evolved into thinking it simply does not matter. Marathon's problems are too foundational, a class-based extraction game entirely unbalanced for solo play, not accessible enough for casuals, and not hardcore enough for existing genre players. Oh, and its cool art style that was the one thing it had going for it? You can't talk about that without saying 'plagiarism' in the same sentence, no matter how few decals may have been stolen. The marketing spend pull isn't a shock, but I get how it certainly sounds like that. The writing has pretty clearly been on the wall since the Alpha that this is not a game that can be released in four months, and it's not just because of some visual polish. Still, I have not heard anything internally about a delay (or cancellation, though those conversations are probably only happening at the top levels. But if Sony is making this move now, some public news may be imminent. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Digital Trends
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Marathon is fighting the ultimate uphill battle
Ever since its initial reveal, Marathon has had an air of skepticism surrounding it by the gaming community at large. At first, I mostly attributed this to Bungie's uneven approach to handling its premier live service franchise, Destiny. Between decisions like removing past expansions, vaulting weapons, and more underwhelming updates than positive ones, I could completely understand the hesitancy around the studio attempting to launch and maintain a second live service game. As we've inched closer and closer to its release date, the general outlook seems to have only gotten more dismal. Yes, there have been some very concerning controversies that shouldn't be swept under the rug, but Marathon is suffering from a more systemic problem with live service games as a whole that it will need to overcome to succeed. Recommended Videos The trust is broken Live service games are labelled as such because they're meant to be living, evolving experiences that players can keep coming back to for months and years. MMORPGs were the progenitors of this model, but now we've seen it applied to all sorts of genres. Despite its ups and downs, Destiny is still the poster child for what we now call live service games and the model so many have tried to imitate. As with anything successful in the gaming industry, it wasn't long before every big player wanted a piece of that pie. The allure of a perpetual money-maker was too great to resist, despite the reality being much more complicated. Sony was arguably the one to invest the most heavily in the model, at one point boasting over 12 live service games in the works. Between released and cancelled projects, that number has shrunk to possibly two, those being Marathon and Fairgames. While we can't discuss the broken trust between gamers and the current and upcoming slate of live service games without mentioning Concord, the root of the problem goes back much further than that. The first game I recall raising major red flags in the gaming sphere was Anthem. Even before all the behind-the-scenes problems in development were brought to light about the game, fans were leery about a studio known for RPGs seemingly trying to hop onto the latest trend. Anthem launched to a less-than-stellar response and quickly went on life support. It failed to satisfy BioWare's core RPG fans or any potential Destiny converts due to a lack of both a satisfying story or a compelling endgame grind. Before launch, EA shared a roadmap calendar detailing three acts of content, and when nothing beyond Act 1 was released for over a year, BioWare promised a major overhaul of the game, unofficially called Anthem 2.0. All of these plans were cancelled. Since then, we've seen more major games make bold claims about months and years of future content, only to pull the rug out from players after a middling — or downright abysmal — launch. Examples include Redfall, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and, of course, Concord. That last one is likely the one that broke the camel's back for most gamers due to how unprecedented it was. This was a PlayStation first-party release with prime showcase placement, an ambitious roadmap of content, an experimental storytelling method, and even a tie-in episode in Secret Level before the game had even come out. That game failing would be bad, but it being scrubbed from existence is catastrophic for gamers' trust in PlayStation and live service as a whole. Not only do we have to be concerned about a game simply breaking all promises of support, but also the entire experience being ripped from us. While I don't think the sins of one game should be borne by another, I can't blame anyone who has adopted a more wait-and-see approach to new live service games. If we can't count on a name as big as PlayStation to make good on its promises, why should we think differently for any other studio? Trust isn't given anymore, it needs to be earned. The impressions I have seen from both major pundits and average players in forums for Marathon feel a lot like what the sentiment was for Concord before launch. The general feelings appear to float around a 'it's pretty fun to play, but there's not enough there right now' type of vibe. Justified or not, that's a death sentence for a game that relies on a large population of people being willing to support the game at its weakest so that it can even attempt to reach its full potential. Gamers have long memories — at least when it comes to being burned. A roadmap and a 'trust us' from the development team just doesn't cut it anymore. Marathon could very well have the potential to be amazing, but it has to start out great to even have a chance to get there. Not enough people will settle for even good, and with so many people perfectly content sitting on the sidelines to see if it fails before it even gets off the ground, it will result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bungie shouldn't be let off the hook for blatant plagiarism or the apparent crashing moral at the studio. Rumors swirling about how the unrealistic amount of money it needs to make to be considered a success don't help either, but Marathon's fate wouldn't look any more certain even if that had never occurred. Until enough live service games earn our trust back, each game is fighting an uphill battle that gets steeper with every failed attempt.
The Verge
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
PlayStation announces new studio focused on ‘immersive multiplayer worlds'
Sony just announced a new internal studio called Team LFG, which will be developing 'a team-based action game.' According to Sony Interactive Entertainment studios CEO Hermen Hulst, the studio 'originated at Bungie, but has also rallied developers from across the industry to bring to life an ambitious incubation project that I'm very excited about.' Curiously, no specific developers were announced as part of the studio reveal, so it's not clear who is actually working at Team LFG. As part of the post introducing the studio, it's described as 'a team composed not just of industry veterans who have shipped titles like Destiny, Halo, League of Legend s, Fortnite, Roblox, and Rec Room, but also industry newcomers with fresh creative perspectives and skills.' The existence of Team LFG is part of PlayStation's push into live service games, which has been scaled back from its original ambitious plan, and has suffered a series of major setbacks. Sony originally acquired Destiny developer Bungie in 2022, and the studio went through multiple rounds of layoffs in the following years. When announcing layoffs in 2024, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said that 'we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development,' which appears to be Team LFG. Bungie is currently working on a multiplayer shooter called Marathon. Sony also released the hero shooter Concord in 2024, and the launch was so disastrous the game was taken offline and, eventually, its developer Firewalk Studios was shuttered. It's not clear how far into development Team LFG's first release is, nor when it might be properly announced. The studio says that 'we will make immersive multiplayer worlds propelled by action games that players can learn, play, and master for countless hours' and that its first game 'draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and frog-type games.' The studio adds that 'players will inhabit a lighthearted, comedic world set in brand-new, mythic, science-fantasy universe.'
