Marathon isn’t going to be the following Harmony, based on Sony Interactive Leisure’s Studio Enterprise Group CEO Hermen Hulst. In a latest “hearth chat” with traders, Hulst admitted that Harmony fell wanting Sony’s expectations, however added that the writer had realized some helpful classes within the wake of the hero shooter’s disastrous August 2024 launch and subsequent cancellation.
After praising the success of Helldivers 2, Hulst conceded that the writer had additionally confronted its justifiable share of challenges in latest months, utilizing Harmony for example, and assuring traders that Sony has made strikes to make sure that Marathon — the upcoming first-person extraction shooter from Bungie — received’t face the identical destiny. Hulst additionally praised the work that the now-defunct Firewalk Studios put into Harmony, citing the aggressive nature of the live-service style and advertising and marketing points as the principle culprits behind the sport’s failure, which finally led to refunds and the closure of Harmony’s improvement studio.
”I feel some actually good work, really, went into that title, some actually massive effort,” Hulst mentioned of Harmony. “However finally, that title entered right into a hyper-competitive section of the market. I feel it was insufficiently differentiated to have the ability to resonate with gamers. And so we’ve reviewed our processes in gentle of this to deeply perceive how and why that title failed to satisfy expectations, to make sure we’re not going to make the identical errors once more.”
Hulst defined that new working procedures have been applied at Sony to make sure the writer doesn’t repeat historical past when Marathon launches later this 12 months.
“We’ve launched far more rigorous processes for validating, for re-validating our artistic, our business, our improvement assumptions and hypotheses, and we now do this on a way more ongoing foundation,” Hulst mentioned. “That’s the plan that can guarantee we’re investing in the suitable alternatives on the proper time, all whereas sustaining far more predictable timelines.
“For Marathon, it’s our aim to launch a really daring, very revolutionary, and deeply partaking title. It’s going to be the primary new Bungie title in over a decade. So we’re actually excited for that launch. We’re monitoring, we’re going by means of the check cycles. We’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle the staff has simply gone by means of. We’re taking all the teachings realized, we’re utilizing the capabilities we’ve constructed — and analytics and consumer testing — to grasp how audiences are partaking with the title.”
Hulst admitted that though a few of that consumer suggestions has been “assorted,” it has additionally been “tremendous helpful” in regard to Marathon’s improvement.
“That’s why you do that testing,” Hulst defined to traders. “The fixed testing, the fixed re-validation of assumptions that we simply talked about, to me is simply so helpful to iterate and to continuously enhance the title, so when launch comes, we’re going to present the title the optimum probability of success.”
A former Firewalk Studios developer additionally appears to agree that Marathon deserves an opportunity.
“I labored on Harmony, and did my finest,” the developer shared on Reddit. “We got here up brief, please don’t punish others for our errors.”
Concerning Marathon, the nameless dev mentioned that they “actually didn’t wish to be ‘that’ dev, calling consideration to myself as if I’ve a horse on this race,” including, “However to name [Marathon] a failure earlier than it’s even out is wild to me.”
Marathon is about to launch on PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X on Sept. 23.
