Marathon Channelling Mirror's Edge, WipEout, Formula One with Striking Art Style | Push Square

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While some fans were disappointed by Sony's reliance on CG trailers in the recent PlayStation Showcase, Bungie's reveal of its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, at least had a unique look. While many live service shooters sort of blur together, this one in particular has a very eye-catching aesthetic in its debut trailer.

As art director Joseph Cross points out on Twitter, fans have already pointed out several key influences on the game's art style. These include «Mirror's Edge, Aeon Flux, Ghost in the Shell, Otomo, Koji Morimoto, The Designers Republic, [and] Chris Cunningham», but Cross goes into more detail about the game's visual direction.

Labelling the look as «graphic realism», he calls out many other sources of inspiration in a thread of tweets. «We are looking back at games from previous generations for inspiration just as much as we are looking forward,» Cross says. He elaborates with games like Metal Gear Solid 2, WipEout, and Bungie's original Marathon games, saying they're «full of interesting visual qualities and ideas» in addition to more modern titles like Death Stranding and God of War.

Moving away from games, he also cites «a ton of influences outside of games», including «product and apparel design, photography, science, conceptual art, cinematography, sports like Formula 1 and MotoGP», as well as some of the aforementioned shows and artists.

Assuming the game looks anywhere near as stylish as the trailer suggests, we should be in for a visual treat whenever Marathon launches. There's no date as of yet, with the game still very much in development.

Having grown up alongside PlayStation, Stephen has developed an eclectic taste in video games and a wide knowledge of the medium, from small indie gems