According to Forbes journalist Paul Tassi, a longtime Destiny reporter with inside contacts at Bungie, things at the studio are not looking great after news of art being stolen hit the studio.
A relatively small artist who’s part of the Antireal noticed her art in the Alpha test version of the game, and, after publishing her findings, got a response from Bungie confirming that her art was stolen by a former employee.
This, combined with mixed reception to the Alpha test itself in terms of gameplay, has the company scrambling and fearing that Marathon may flop on release.
As a result, Bungie is reconsidering their strategy entirely and pushing back major game reveals according to Tassi’s reporting.
Bungie completely rethinking Marathon release strategy
After internal playtests in 2023, Marathon already got delayed once. People who played it back then weren’t sold on it, forcing Bungie to push the game back and create a more engaging gameplay formula.
Around two years later, they got the same response from the early Alpha. Creators didn’t think the game was bad, but they said it needs a lot more work and more content to really capture audiences and make a dent in the live service market.
This sentiment, combined with the stolen art controversy, has people scrambling internally. According to Tassi’s sources, “the vibes have never been worse.”
There’s no date on how long the internal audit of all Bungie’s assets will be, with their legal team trying to work on sorting things out. They’ve also pulled planned advertising for the game that was supposed to launch in June according to this report, with the Beta likely getting pushed back as well.
However, despite everything, there is no discussion of a delay amongst normal Bungie employees. The company isn’t even considering it, leaving many concerned at what may happen to the studio if Marathon flops.
Additionally, the report reveals that there were questions about the direction of Marathon from the very beginning, with developers urging top brass to incorporate a PvE component and not make it exclusively a multiplayer game. They were allegedly ignored as the studio went forward with the project regardless.
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