With the announcement that Bungie is laying off almost half of their workforce including all of the destiny team and and even some of the marathon team some might be wondering what does this mean for the future of Marathon?
Bungie Layoffs
I think we've all heard the rumors swirling around Destiny 2, and it officially came to its end this month and with that meant a large layoff on the team that worked on that game. But what we didn't realize is that layoffs were also coming to the Marathon team, including their entire Cinematics department, senior sound designers, and other upper level roles.
This is a very concerning sign for the future of Marathon, as it means Sony is not opposed to reducing the development force supporting the game. Cinematics are a Bungie staple. They’re way to market the game and any new updates or new Shells or new weapons or whatever the case may be to a broad audience, and make the game look really really cool to draw people in.
Bungie’s cinematic team to me might be the best in the industry. I mean every cinematic they dropped for Marathon was phenomenal, and Destiny always had jaw-dropping cinematics as well.
Even if I wasn't playing either of those games, if I had seen one of those cinematics, it would have drawn me towards at least checking out what the game was all about.
When you add to that that they let go of senior sound designers, who are absolutely essential for the gameplay and the feel of an extraction shooter like Marathon, things start to seem a little bit bleak to me. You’d think if Sony and Bungie were on board to try to grow Marathon, to try to improve the game and try to draw people in, they wouldn't let go of their cinematic team and they probably wouldn't let go of some of the best sound designers in the world.
Then again, these roles and this level of talent (like I said, the best of the best in the world) probably wasn’t cheap - and layoffs are all about cost savings.
Marathon Future In Doubt?
Now Bungie has already announced Season 3 will be coming in a few months, and with that they're going to be completely revamping the new player experience as well as revamping the Perimeter map. They also said they’d be adding more content. That's all well and fine but it's still leaves me wondering what comes after that?
An article posted after Season 1 concluded in May did call out that they have plans for Seasons 4 and 5, but you’ve got to think with all the layoffs and with the way that Marathon is underperforming… Will those future Seasons 4 and 5 actually come to fruition?
Season 3 is all about revamping the new player experience, but if you're not pulling in new players will this really move the needle? This is my main concern about Season 3. It seems that the game will need a large shift - something big to happen - to pull in new players. But Bungie got rid of one of their best marketing teams! I'm concerned that they're going to make a huge update, spend a lot of money on the new player experience that isn't really going to benefit anybody, and then that is just going to lead to an even lower player base.
Season 2 didn't really help things either. I think there were cool features added and some quality of life improvements, but overall the Free Week didn't help boost player numbers and the content in Season 2 along with the loot economy issues of Season 2 caused by the poorly ran start to the season kind of ruined it for a lot of people and just didn't give us enough to want to keep playing let alone bring in new players. Hopefully the new Vault Breaker mode coming in the mid season update helps to change that… and who knows? Maybe Vault Breaker is so successful that it completely changes what Marathon is as a game and the player base explodes.
Final Thoughts
Obviously I hope I'm wrong. I hope the game picks up. I hope they keep developing it, because I absolutely love this game and I want to play it for a very long time.
I want to see what they do with the PVE. I want to see if they add more maps like Cryo Archive (which I think is one of the coolest things ever in an Extraction Game). But at the end of the day, being fully honest, things just don't look great at Bungie and I'm starting to think that maybe Marathon won't be the game that saves Bungie, and instead becomes the game that ends Bungie.
In any case I'm still very much enjoying this game. I don't have the time to grind hundreds of hours and so I hop on a few times a week for a few hours at a time and I have a blast still. I think it's very much worth $40, but I don't know if it's something that Sony sees as important enough to support and continue to develop into the future.
Again I hope I'm wrong. I guess we'll find out.
I'll see y'all on Tau Ceti!