Former Bungie director says Marathon didn’t stem from Tarkov or extraction shooters — it was inspired by an MMO my parents played 20 years ago

Given that Bungie's upcoming Xbox, PC, and PS5 sci-fi FPS Marathon is itself an extraction shooter, you'd be forgiven for thinking that its main source of inspiration came from established and popular entries in the genre like Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown. According to the game's former director, however, this actually isn't the case.

Ex-Bungie executive Christopher Barrett — a longtime developer at the studio that majorly contributed to Halo, Destiny, and Marathon before he was fired last year due to a dispute over complaints of inappropriate workplace behavior — has revealed that the original idea behind Marathon actually stemmed from an MMO my parents played 20 years ago: Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC).

I have fond memories of watching my family enjoy the acclaimed 2001 title when I was a kid, and even dabbled in it myself a bit when I grew older, but I haven't heard it mentioned by anyone for years. Thus, to learn that it was primary inspiration for Marathon came as quite a surprise. After reading why, though, I immediately understood.

"The original inspiration was not Tarkov or extraction shooters. It was Dark Age of Camelot. A tense living world experience filled with co-op player stories and the potential danger of other players," wrote Barrett in a post on social media. "Extraction was just a convenient mechanic leveraged to create a ~15 minute game loop where players in the same session have multiple opportunities to succeed or fail."

That description sounds exactly like DAoC's realm vs. realm (RvR) zones in which players from the MMO's three distinct realms — Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia — could encounter each other and engage in PvP while fighting through dungeons and other points of interest filled with PvE mobs.

It also sounds a whole lot like the foundation of extraction shooter gameplay in general, which made me realize the core concept of the genre can be traced back to RvR MMO experiences as much as it can be to early-2010s ARMA and DayZ modding.

Barrett went on to list some of his "original design goals" for Marathon, some of which include persistent servers players can always spawn onto or extract from — think ARC Raiders sessions, but without a timer — a player-driven "living world" with "emergent dynamic events," a focus on facilitating unique player stories and experiences, and survival elements like broken limbs or leaking gas tanks to keep players on their toes and push them to creatively adapt.

He also imagines a game that draws on the lore and story of the original Marathon titles to present "a compelling, deep, interesting world that feels worthy of your time," an experience with completely unique and customizable player characters ("no heroes"), "live service robustness" and consistent updates, and win conditions that ensure playstyles beyond "PvP twitch dominance" have a "path to success."

Barrett concluded by noting that "I obviously can’t speak to the current game direction," and indeed, Marathon has deviated from this original vision in some ways. For one, the game has distinct Runner characters ("personality matrixes," if you will) with hero shooter-esque abilities, and it also features timed raids instead of persistent servers.

With that said, it also seems to be leaning in the direction of this original concept a bit compared to the game we saw earlier this spring. As revealed in a recent ViDoc showcase, proximity chat is coming to promote more social interactions between players, and PvE encounters are being made more dynamic and dangerous too; I expect these will encourage on-the-fly decisions to team up and help ensure each match feels unique.

We'll know for sure how the finished version of Marathon plays when it launches at some point in March 2026. It was originally scheduled to release on September 23, 2025 this year, but was delayed in June.

What do you think of Christopher Barrett's original vision for Marathon, and how it compares to the version of the game that Bungie is making now? Let me know in the comments.

Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!