In the midst of countless live service games unceremoniously shutting down these days, Bungie has said it plans on supporting Marathon for “many years.”
Despite the game’s glowing review scores and early success, that’s likely heartening news to fans, especially in the face of Highguard just recently shutting down only a couple of months after launch.
Bungie’s new commitment comes at the tail-end of a lengthy new PC Performance Guide posted on the game’s official website. The post discusses the best settings for Marathon, Bungie’s very first DirectX 12 title, while also briefly outlining plans for future improvements.
While we aren’t ready to provide specifics yet, we have already identified some smaller improvements that we can make soon, particularly to improve CPU performance. We also have longer-term changes planned that will further improve CPU performance,” Bungie says, “Our plan is to get improvements out as soon as we can, rather than wait to drop them all at the same time. (Even though this might make them less obvious!) While we are very proud of what we have accomplished with the overall look and feel of the game since Alpha, we are in it for the long haul with Marathon. We look forward to many years of steady improvements to every aspect of the game. “
Marathon has had a long and winding path to release, with the game first announced in May 2023, as one of Sony’s nearly a dozen planned live service games in the company’s big push. Most of those other titles have been cancelled, or, in the case of Concord, shut down. The only other games to survive currently are Helldivers 2, the upcoming Horizon Hunters Gathering, and the in-development Fairgame$.
But Marathon certainly has a long road ahead to make sure it can maintain player interest for years to come. We gave the game an 8.5/10 in our review, saying “Marathon is an addictive extraction shooter featuring the same masterful gunplay that has made Bungie legendary, making it a must-play for fans of the genre and even those adverse to it.”
Marathon is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
