Marathon
Tuesday was a truly wild today for Bungie, where they were debuting new Destiny 2 Into the Light content while simultaneously announcing a change in Marathon’s game director in order to get out ahead of a pending IGN story.
IGN’s Rebekah Valentine published an article about the state of Bungie and one significant change, that former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler, who joined Bungie in 2022, was now game director of Marathon, replacing Christopher Barrett.
What’s weird about this is the timeline, as Ziegler says he has been game director for nine months, which was never announced until this IGN article forcibly revealed it, and that would have been just weeks after Barrett premiered Marathon in a showcase in May 2023. There are no reasons given for the change, and Barrett is now simply listed as “Executive Creative Director” at Bungie, with unclear responsibilities.
But what caught the attention of players themselves was a note about an apparent change in direction for Marathon, that the game is “moving away from custom player characters in favor of a selectable cast of heroes.”
The idea here seems to be that instead of the promised player customization that was spoken about during the reveal, this would instead be a hero-based extraction game instead, channeling Ziegler’s former game, Valorant.
Valorant
While games like Valorant and Apex Legends have been successful with the hero shooter model, I have not see a single positive comment about this alleged change from anyone, namely a host of Destiny players and content creators who have all expressed disappointment or concern about the idea.
It was always going to be a tall order to try to convert Destiny players over to a PvP extraction game, but now if nothing else, Destiny has been all about player customization for ten years from loadouts to looks. If Marathon ditches that in favor of Valorant, Overwatch or Apex style heroes with fixed kits, that is a huge turn-off to that entire community.
One idea is that Bungie is doing this to distance itself from Tarkov, the other highest profile PvP extraction game, but I think there are likely other things at play. First, this is clearly Ziegler’s skill set, and if he’s game director now, it may be a vision he is more comfortable with as opposed to Barrett’s custom concept. Second, my gut tells me this may have something to do with monetization, as hero games sell extremely pricey skins, with Valorant getting wildly expensive with things like weapon skin bundles, or Apex’s Heirloom system. That may be the kind of monetization Bungie wants and need here with Marathon.
From the outside, switching to a hero-based game does not seem wise. Doing that forces you into competition with huge, existing games, even if you have a different concept with extraction. And while you may be able to pursue new players, you are going to lose the interest instantly of a lot of Destiny players that have stuck with you for a decade, and before that, Halo players, which this will also be nothing like.
Again, Bungie has not confirmed this but Ziegler says more of Marathon will be shown soon, and with Bungie needing to get the game out in 2025, there is almost no way it changes course again now.
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