Bungie announce PvP-only Marathon reboot for PS5 and PC

thesixthaxis.com:

Bungie has announced Marathon, some kind of reboot of the company’s original first person shooter. It’s got a very different look and feel to the early-mid 90s FPS pioneer, though, and is confirmed as a PvP-only affair. It’s in development for PS5 and PC.

Marathon released all the way back in 1994, an early compatriot to Doom that was a Mac exclusive before spreading to PC with its sequel. With a convoluted narrative around time travel and AI gaining sentience, a lot of narrative threads carried through to Halo and beyond.

Rumours of a Marathon reboot from Bungie have been coming for a while, and the trailer seems to show something much more action-packed, potentially with a live service competitive element thrown into the mix.

Explaining the game on the PlayStation Blog, Game Director Christopher Barrett said:

“Marathon is designed from the start as a PvP-focused game and won’t have a single-player campaign. Instead, with the PvP experience as our foundation, we’re creating opportunities for player-driven stories to unfold, stories that are integrated with the overarching game narrative. We’re building a world full of persistent, evolving zones, where players create their own journey with every run they take. That might mean an unforgettable firefight against another crew vying for the same loot, or a last-second extraction while beset on all sides.”

So, it really sounds like it’s a game in the mould of Tarkov, though it’s expanding on that concept with more persistent changes to the game world that go beyond just your most recent run and attempt.

Now, Bungie can obviously do what they want with their IP, but this is a thoroughly different game and experience to the cold and hard sci-fi shooter action of the original games.