Marathon Bungie Set to Reignite FPS Genre With 2025 Sci-Fi Reboot

What Do We Know About Marathon?

For Marathon, Bungie has dedicated a long time of development – spending two years since its initial teaser in 2023 and coming up with a cinematic just a few months before its expected release. Sure, there are realistic expectations about how it is hyped to set standards in the shooter genre, but it will be almost as the same as Halo and Destiny – a swashbuckling shooter full of intense scenes and a fiery taste for destruction in its environment.

For starters, Marathon is not a new title. Let that sink in. Developed and published by Bungie, Marathon was first released in December 1994 for the Apple Macintosh, taking place in centuries into the future with players set as a security officer who tries to foil an alien invasion aboard a colony ship named the Marathon.

Marathon led to two sequels, Marathon 2: Durandal was released in 1995 after the success of the first game, before eventually releasing its third and final installment, Marathon Infinity, in 1996. Bungie tried to extend the series in the same year, coming up with Super Marathon, a port of Marathon and Marathon 2 to the short-lived Apple Bandai Pippin video game console.

Setting Expectations: Marathon Games Rating Over the Years

Marathon Titles	Review Scores
Marathon (1994)	AllGame - 4 stars
	Next Generation - 4 stars
	Touch Arcade - 4 stars
	MacUser - 5 stars
Marathon 2: Durandal (1995)	AllGame - 4.5 stars
	Computer Gaming World - 4.5 stars
	Game Revolution - 4 stars
	GameSpot - 3.5 stars
	Hyper - 4 stars
Marathon Infinity (1996)	MacUser - 4.5 stars
	AllGame - 4 stars
	MacUser - 4.5 stars

While it is not much of a popular title, it did set the standard for the FPS genre as it served as Macintosh’s answer to PC’s Doom back in the day. In May 2023, Bungie would go on to release a multiplayer reboot trailer for Marathon, which is set way ahead of the original game’s timeline and was branded as a Sci-Fi PvP extraction shooter.

Marathon Bungie Release Date

Marathon is expected to be released in the latter part of the year on September 23, 2025. Surprisingly, this is the same release date as Borderlands 4, which means that Bungie is going for a direct competition this fall. Players can get an early taste of Marathon this April 23rd to May 4th, which is the Closed Alpha for the game.

To sign up for the said early access, players must be a part of the Marathon Discord channel, where they will be getting a private message with instructions leading to a unique sign-up link. Selected players will be getting emails from Bungie. Unfortunately, the initial Closed Alpha is restricted to North America, but there are rumors that a second early access will come out soon considering that it is still way ahead of its actual release date.

As confirmed by Bungie, Marathon will be launched on multiple gaing platforms, such as PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, and PC. It remains a question if it will also be released in current and upcoming handheld consoles, such as the Steamdeck and the up and rising Nintendo Swtich 2.

Bungie Taking a Risk

Considering that live-service shooters have taken a beating in the past few months, Bungie deciding to come up with a full cross-play and cross-save on launch is a risk. It is already a crowded market full of live-service shooter games, and not making it free is actually another risk to consider at this point in time.

It can be remembered that Concord, a PlayStation title – launched with a $40 set price – and it did not get as far as most people expected it to be. However, Bungie has already hinted that Marathon wouldn’t be at full price and is expected to play it wise by coming up with a better strategy on the payment side of games.

Suffice to say, one can remember that Destiny 2 was released as a free-to-play game but took back its funding with a hefty price for a DLC – with the latest title, The Final Shape, priced at $49.99.

Bungie Dominance: Ratings of Last Five Releases

Based on this data, Halo 3 (2007) and Halo: Reach (2010) were nothing short of legendary. Both games stacked up glowing reviews across the board — we’re talking 4.5 to 5 stars from nearly every major outlet. If Bungie returns to Halo-era polish, Marathon could be a critical smash.

On the other hand, The launch of the original Destiny was... complicated. Despite being one of the most anticipated games of the decade, the critical response was surprisingly lukewarm — scores ranged from 2.5 to 4 stars, and most reviews cited a lack of content, confusing storytelling, and a vague, grind-heavy loop.

This just means that if Bungie moves to launch Marathon half-baked like Destiny, expect tough reviews and vocal pushback. Bungie is no stranger to reinvention. But with the pressure on and fans demanding more than just good gunplay, Marathon needs to be more than just stylish — it needs to be smart, stable, and ready to go at launch.

Everything to Learn About Marathon’s Story

As said before, it is not a new title by Bungie, but a continuation of one of its successful trilogies. It is worth noting that space-combat story games have not been successful in rebooting its titles, as such is the case of Mass Effect, which had three majestic games, only to fall in their revamp with Mass Effect Andromeda.

In this case, the original Marathon was set in 2794, while the upcoming game will now start over 50 years later at 2850. Players will get to finally see the destination of the colony ship Marathon – Tau Ceti IV, which it was trying to reach over the previous three installations. However, the recent cinematic release depicts it as an abandoned colony and its people gone.

Players are given control of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who have given up their human bodies in exchange for heightened abilities and resistant structure of their bodies. These runners are hired by various factions in hopes of draining Tau Ceti IV of whatever is left to scavenge from the supplies left behind by colonists.

As it is an extraction looter shooter, playing solo isn’t actually going to be quite a good idea. After all, it is expected that the main goal would be to locate and extract all possible loot from the map without being killed – and getting done so means huge upgrades in the long run, while in-game death means loss of all loot collected, as depicted in the cinematic where players killed get their loot scavenged while they are blown to bits.

What to Expect From Marathon?

Despite being owned by Sony, Marathon game Bungie will not be requiring a PSN account to be played in PC and Xbox. This is a game set as a PvPvE, meaning that players will not just go up against opposing players, but also against the environmental hostiles as presented in the cinematic trailer – where security robots still operate to fulfill their functionality while hostile alien creatures have also appeared to pose a serious threat against players.

While the Closed Alpha has revealed four Runner classes for players to choose from (Blackbird, Glitch, Locus, and Void), Bungie has announced that there will be six different classes when it launches in September. Each runner is equipped with one Prime ability, one Tactical, and two Traits.

It is expected that there will be high competition in the game moving forward with the way shooter games have evolved over the years. However, one can say that Marathon will bring some high expectations (mostly from being a Bungie title) as it builds up from the success of various titles such as Halo and Destiny.

More details are expected to develop as Marathon will be rumbling around the internet in the coming months and the Closed Alpha coming in hot now more than ever. This says a lot about the titular game being revived from the depths and reimagining its story to a whole new level.