Bungie’s been having a tough time following the discharge of Future 2‘s Lightfall DLC. Amidst layoffs, the problematic in-house ambiance, and its closing season being completely common in most regards comes a brand new set of corroborated rumours claiming that the upcoming Marathon recreation has been retrofitted right into a hero shooter.

Based on a report from IGN, Bungie’s shakeup goes additional into extra than simply Future. In a management change, Marathon‘s artistic management, particularly recreation director Christopher Barret, is being changed by former Valorant director Joe Ziegler. This has been corroborated additional by Ziegler’s subsequent Twitter announcement, the place he confirmed that he has been the pinnacle of Marathon for the previous 9 months.

The actually curious bit, although, is that the character of Marathon seems to have modified since Ziegler’s taken the reigns. Based on IGN’s report, the brand new method for Marathon features a departure from player-created characters “in favor of a selectable forged of heroes.”

Up till just lately, audiences anticipated Marathon to be an extraction shooter with custom-built participant characters — Runners — not in contrast to Future 2‘s Guardians. This makes the most recent revelations doubtlessly problematic within the grand scheme of issues.

Notably, there’s been a slew of unfavorable feedback on the matter left on each the most important Future 2 subreddit and the extra normal gaming subreddits. It doesn’t appear that individuals are thrilled with this data, typically talking, and Marathon‘s shift from being a particularly narrative-heavy DOOM-alike to a hyper-stylized PvPvE Tarkov competitor was already driving a wedge locally.

It’s nonetheless, after all, early days for Marathon, with nary a playable beta in sight. Drawing any concrete conclusions in regards to the high quality or, certainly, the core gameplay loop of the upcoming Marathon recreation is ineffective at the moment, and Bungie might wow the audiences in the long run.

The issue within the interim, although, is that IGN’s sources declare that Bungie is going through points internally as nicely. Notably, Bungie workers harbors a “rising expectation” that the senior firm management will depart “in droves” in 2026 when Sony’s closing acquisition payouts are available in. There’s concern about who will step in and take over after and the push to complete Marathon earlier than that timeframe.

A complete load of unknowns, then, and it’s at present not possible to say what might occur with Marathon in the long run. For the previous franchise veterans, it’s a little bit of a disgrace that Bungie’s determined to not revive the IP in a extra wise kind that’s true to the Marathon legacy, nevertheless it’s not all completely grim.

For one, the group behind Aleph One is about to launch Marathon Basic on Steam, which is bound to get extra eyes on the franchise briefly order. And, after all, Bungie may ship one thing really phenomenal below Ziegler’s management in due time. Future followers, not less than, have an honest-to-goodness horde mode to stay up for, which is coming as a part of the Into the Gentle content material drop.