Marathon reportedly flopped amongst playtesters amid Bungie chaos

Destiny 2 streamer Aztecross has revealed that Marathon performed poorly with Escape from Tarkov playtesters with them telling Bungie if Marathon was released tomorrow they wouldn’t play it.

Bungie has had a chaotic week after the Destiny publisher laid off a large chunk of its staff leaving the games industry devastated. Furthermore, both The Final Shape and Marathon are believed to be delayed although Bungie has yet to confirm so.

Fans were quick to speculate as to what triggered such a strong reaction with some blaming Lightfall’s shortcomings and others pointing the finger at the looter shooter’s DLC model for scaring off new players.

Speculation from players is one thing but now one of Destiny’s biggest content creators has disclosed information that looks to explain why Bungie switched up its game plan.

Marathon didn’t click with Escape from Tarkov playtesters

Speaking on the situation surrounding Bungie, Destiny, and Marathon, streamer Aztecross shared some information about why the Destiny developer had taken such extreme measures.

Passing on information from an anonymous trusted source, Aztecross opened: “Marathon was originally a battle royale because battle royales were blowing up. it only swapped swapped lanes to become an extraction looter shooter because of the success of Tarkov.”

Timestamp: 8:16

“Bungie actually held an event earlier this year where they brought in a ton of Tarkov streamers, they got to play Marathon. To my knowledge, no Destiny 2 content creator, PvP player, or community member attended this,” the streamer continued.

Delivering the bombshell, Aztecross stated: “It was also disclosed that at the end of this event – after playing Marathon – Bungie asked these Tarkov streamers the question ‘Would you play Marathon if it came out tomorrow?’. No one raised their hand. Hence why Marathon is being delayed to 2025.”

Offering further clarification Aztecross went on to explain the following via his video’s comment section:

• Marathon was always an Extraction Looter Shooter, and Bungie only briefly entertained making a BR. However, Marathon was always an Extraction Shooter with its first playable build in January 2020.
• Bungie’s original goal was to have 4 games: ‘Marathon, Destiny, Matter, & another one that would come from the incubation team’.
• Matter got canned in December 2020.
• Most people working on Marathon are folks who were burnt out on Destiny 2.
• ‘Upper Management’ is full of folks you’ve never seen.

With both Destiny 2’s The Final Shape expansion and Marathon reportedly delayed, all fans can do is pray Bungie turns things around and manages to meet their expectations.