Rumour: Bungie Wants Marathon on PS5 to Be the Ultimate Live Service Game | Push Square

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Bungie is bringing Marathon back as a PvP extraction-style shooter, and it looks about as sci-fi and kinetic as you'd expect from the team that brought you Destiny 2. As the benchmark for quality in the high-stakes world of service games, it stands to reason that the studio would want to take things to the next level with Marathon, and it appears the plan is to do precisely that

Insider Gaming has dug further, reapproaching sources and gleaning additional information. Anything can change between now and whenever the game ultimately comes out. We're logging this as a Rumour, but credit where it's due: Tom Henderson and Co. were dead-on before and likely will be again.

Something that came up several times, apparently, was the idea of making Marathon the «ultimate live service». One source said that the team is aiming for single-digit load times, from readying up to playing live on the server.

Escape from Tarkov players know that alone would be a game changer. In addition, Marathon's various maps will have secrets hidden away in them for the community to obsess over. In fact, Tarkov is referenced repeatedly, with essentially the same core gameplay loop in place, which Insider describes thusly:

It is also understood that three maps are currently in development, but whether or not they make it in at launch remains to be seen.

Further, Tarkov staples like Permadeath will be present, and solo players will be able to get in on the action but will find themselves up against duos and trios. There will also apparently be some kind of oxygen system at play, feeding further into hardcore survival elements. Being shot and having a canister ruptured was given as an example, with other injuries (bleeding, concussion) having adverse