Sony’s Herman Hulst made a point during his overview of PlayStation’s portfolio to highlight Marathon as “an innovative and bold take on the extraction shooter genre.” A corresponding slide under the “FY25 Focus” banner added that there is “Strong early engagement for Bungie’s bold and innovative new title.”

If you’ve been keeping up with Marathon's trajectory, this kind of praise seems surprising.

To begin with, the presentation at least confirms a timeframe—Fiscal Year 2025—for the game’s release. That’s notable because many players suspect it will miss its current September 23, 2025 launch date. Since FY25 ends in March 2026, any delay wouldn’t be massive—a year would be unlikely, and even six months would be stretching it. If a delay does come, it won’t be long, and one has to wonder what could realistically be improved or fixed in such a short window.

Then there's the claim of "strong engagement." There certainly has been engagement, but much of it has been negative: backlash following the gameplay reveal, widespread disappointment after the Closed Alpha, and a major scandal involving plagiarized artwork discovered within the game’s assets—some of which had been present for years. So yes, “engagement” is accurate, though perhaps not in the way Sony intended.

Either Sony is unaware of—or deliberately ignoring—the broader online sentiment around Marathon, or they’re simply trying to project confidence despite knowing things aren't going smoothly. Staying silent on Marathon or hedging here wouldn’t help the game, so naturally, they're putting on a strong front. Still, behind closed doors, even Bungie is reportedly very worried about the direction the project is heading.

Looking at Sony’s live service outlook paints a grim picture. Their live service lineup includes an evergreen sports title, The Show, while Destiny 2 continues to lose players and enters a precarious new chapter unlikely to restore its former success. Marathon now teeters on the brink of failure. The inclusion of Fairgames still being listed as a future release is almost laughable. The only true success story here is Helldivers 2, which has maintained momentum since launch—but Arrowhead, its developer, has no plans to continue working with Sony moving forward.

Over the past two months, I've come to believe that Marathon is simply not going to succeed. The atmosphere surrounding the game is deeply negative, most of its issues are already baked in, and now there's an art theft controversy layered on top. While I do expect a brief delay to be announced, I don’t believe this will be the triumphant release Sony and Bungie are publicly claiming it will be.

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