Marathon is shaping up for a March release after a tumultuous 2025 that uncovered controversies, scepticism, and doubt. The game’s launch was delayed, and Bungie had to right a few wrongs before preparing to push out what could be the next generation of extraction shooters, challenging the paradigm set by the likes of Escape from Tarkov.
One sizeable piece of news to emerge in recent weeks was the departure of Joseph Cross, the game’s art director. After more than a decade at Bungie, the developer departed the project, mere months ahead of the game’s launch, and in a new interview, he has opened up on the situation.
Marathon’s Future is a Tentative One
Nobody can accurately predict how Marathon will perform when it launches on March 5th. It’s a tentative time for Bungie, as they’ve put a lot of eggs (and hope) in this basket, and should it fail, it could spell the beginning of a downward spiral for the studio.
Marathon is an extraction shooter, emerging into a genre popularized by the likes of Escape from Tarkov and ARC Raiders. It takes players and plants them into a unique, fictional world populated with AI enemies, other players, and environmental threats. Players must load into a game, loot, shoot, resolve quests, and get out again without succumbing to the violence within.
That’s the core gameplay loop, and it’s hopefully going to be enough to give Marathon a strong start out of the gate.
In a recent interview, Joseph Cross, the former art director working on Marathon, spoke about his contributions to the project. He said:
I believe in what we’ve done. I think we did something really cool, and I think it will pan out. I can’t control the way the game plays. I’m not a designer. I’m not the game director. I can only control what I can control, and what I could control, I feel really good about.
And you can’t take that away from me, as much as the haters try online or wherever, and whether someone doesn’t happen to like the art direction personally, whether they don’t agree with some political thing Bungie did, or whatever the animosity du jour is, you can’t take the thing I care about the most away.
(Thanks to PCGamer for the spot)
He explained that he feels ‘bummed’ about the debate regarding Marathon’s art style and whether it makes sense in the extraction shooter space, which typically focuses on realism (except for the likes of Escape from Duckov).
Marathon will be released on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC on March 5th, and it’s hard to tell right now how much of a success it will be.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
Future flop. Sony will burn down all these flops. More studio closures on the way. PS6 is coming sooner I think. Where is Fairgames?