While Bungie has spoken about the future of Marathon moving beyond the confines of the PvPvE extraction shooter genre, the studio has now also noted that it isn’t just leaving the genre behind. In a social media post, game director Del Chafe said that “Extraction is still a major part of Marathon” and will continue to see updates in the future.
Concerns about Bungie potentially leaving the extraction shooter behind first came up with the studio’s emphasis on the permanent PvE mode coming to the game with the Symbiosis update in December.
“Last week we had a great time talking about the upcoming PvE and experimental PvP modes for Symbiosis in December. We want to be clear, Extraction is still a major part of Marathon, and we’re also going to continue updating it as we look to the future of the game.”
Chafe went on to ask fans of Marathon for feedback about “what you’re enjoying about Extraction today, what you think needs work, and what you wish was there.”
It is worth noting that, as part of announcing the future roadmap for Marathon, Bungie has said that it is aiming to create “connected PvE, PvP, and PvEvP experiences” that are bolstered by deeper methods of progression, expansions to the story, and other new content like zones and shells.
“Some players want a quick, lower-pressure run after work,” explained the studio at the time. “Some want to spend an entire night with their crew. Others want to test a build, compete directly against other players, chase a difficult challenge, or follow a strange clue deeper into the ruins of Tau Ceti IV. Marathon needs to support all of them.”
The Symbiosis update is also going to bring in other forms of content to the game, including an expanded version of Perimeter, a new shell, and general improvements to the onboarding experience to ensure that new players have an easier time getting into the extraction shooter.
“We know that rebuilding trust requires more than talking about the future. We need to share our work and clearly communicate what’s changing so the Marathon community has an accurate understanding of what each update will and won’t deliver.
“While we build toward December and March, we’ll continue making meaningful quality-of-life improvements and running focused experiments that allow players to participate without reorganizing their lives around limited windows.”
This move to focusing on larger updates is part of Bungie’s decision to move away from the seasonal content model that it was aiming for with Marathon. The studio announced in mid-September that this had also led to the Symbiosis update – originally slated for September 22nd – being delayed to December.
More details about the PvE mode haven’t yet been revealed, with Bungie noting that it still has to finalize some of its more minute details. However, the studio has promised that it will give us a look at the game mode before it comes out later this year.
In the meantime, Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
