While Bungie has been forging ahead with its planned March 5 release date for extraction shooter Marathon, the title has been the subject of quite a bit of criticism for its art style from early marketing materials. Among these criticisms were comparisons between Marathon and Sony’s failed live-service competitive shooter Concord. Joseph Cross, former art director for Bungie’s upcoming title, has spoken about these comparisons, noting that it was difficult to take them personally.
“It’s difficult for me to take any of that stuff personally because I believe in the art, because I believe in what we’ve done,” said Cross in an interview with ReaderGrev. “I think we did something really cool, and I think it will pan out. I can’t control the way the game plays. I’m not a designer. I’m not the game director. I can only control what I can control, and what I could control, I feel really good about.”
He went on to note that, while there might be some hate coming his way from some sections of the online fandom, he can’t stop being proud of what he achieved during his tenure at Bungie.
“And you can’t take that away from me, as much as the haters try online or wherever, and whether someone doesn’t happen to like the art direction personally, whether they don’t agree with some political thing Bungie did, or whatever the animosity du jour is, you can’t take the thing I care about the most away. There’s a part of me definitely that feels bummed, but sort of in the same way you feel bummed like you got unlucky.”
In the same interview, Cross also spoke about his decision to leave Bungie, which seemingly stemmed from the fact that he wanted to do work on more projects for himself. The fact that the 15 years he spent at the studio only ended up with him working on two major franchises—Destiny and Marathon—was also a big part of his decision.
“You know, I’m not a founder of Bungie,” he explained. “This is not my company. And I’m conscious of the number of projects I get to work on in my life. I’m not getting any younger. I’ve spent what will ultimately be 15 years, essentially, on two projects for Bungie: Destiny and Marathon, with film work in between. So after six years, leaving a week or two before release lock, I felt an incredible amount of satisfaction in what we’d done. And the natural cadence of the kind of work that happens post-launch in a live service game, I also understood what that was looking like.”
Cross had announced his departure from Bungie back in December. One month later and the studio would officially confirm the release date for Marathon. For more details on the extraction shooter, check out its PC requirements. Also check out how its Free Kit-styled Runner, the Rook, mixes up the gameplay you would expect from playing a Scavenger in Escape From Tarkov while also giving players tough choices.
