Bungie's Marathon delayed past September release date as a darker tone, proximity chat, and more are being added

Bungie is delaying its upcoming first-person extraction shooter Marathon, the studio shared on Tuesday.

Originally planned to launch on Sept. 23, 2025, Marathon now lacks a release date. Bungie says it will share new launch plans at some point this fall.

According to the update, the team is now focusing on the following improvements:

• Upping the Survival Game
  • More challenging and engaging AI encounters
  • More rewarding runs, with new types of loot and dynamic events
  • Making combat more tense and strategic
• Doubling down on the Marathon Universe
  • Increased visual fidelity
  • More narrative and environmental storytelling to discover and interact with
  • A darker tone that delivers on the themes of the original trilogy
• Adding more social experiences
  • A better player experience for solo/duos
  • Prox chat, so social stories can come to life

Per Paul Tassi at Forbes, "most" of Bungie found out about the game delay at the time it was announced.

All of this comes as Marathon has been inundated in bad PR over the last few weeks since Bungie admitted the game's art used stolen assets. The company stated at the time that it was committed to figuring out how the "oversight" happened and was working to ensure it did right by the artist.

Marathon is Bungie's first new game launch since Destiny 2 in 2017, and the first for the studio since it was acquired in 2022 by PlayStation parent company Bungie for $3.6 billion.

The acquisition placed Bungie as an independent studio alongside (not under) PlayStation Studios, providing advice and live service support while remaining a fully multiplatform company.

Since being acquired, Bungie has laid off hundreds of developers, with others being transferred directly to PlayStation, including a small team spun off into a new studio called TeamLFG.

Whenever it launches, Marathon is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.