Bungie’s Marathon is now on track to launch on March 5, marking the first new release from the studio in nearly a decade. Needless to say, the industry is certainly excited about this title, and even those typically not fond of extraction shooters are showing interest in the genre due to Bungie’s reputation.
Ahead of this release, a former Bungie developer has made interesting comments regarding the title. According to Joseph Cross, games like Marathon are part of a dying breed.
Joseph Cross served as the Art Director for Marathon and departed the team at some point in 2025. Speaking to Readergrev’s Mikhail Klimentov, the developer discussed the expectations that come with a major AAA project such as Marathon.
He outlined that such a project is inherently a major risk for a studio, particularly because of the current state of the gaming industry. Joseph Cross also pointed to Concord’s failure, noting that studios funding such huge projects without any guarantees is not to be taken for granted.
Joseph Cross then contemplated how long the industry would continue in such a direction, hinting at an inevitable time when the risk-reward factor of new AAA IPs no longer makes sense for studios. The more projects like Concord fail, the harder it will likely become for studios to justify greenlighting projects with massive budgets.
“Marathon is such a massive project. The idea of studios funding unproven, unknown projects for six or eight years, for hundreds or millions of dollars, sort of on spec. How much longer are things like this going to exist?” – Joseph Cross
Recently, games like Highguard have also been discussed in similar conversations. All signs point to Highguard being a letdown, highlighting yet again the risky nature of AAA development, particularly when modern games take as long to make as they do.
Fortunately for Marathon, the game is showing signs of life already. Going by the Steam best-sellers list, the extraction shooter should be able to do well on PC at launch, but the point raised by Joseph Cross remains valid regardless of how Bungie’s upcoming title performs.
