Bungie seems focused on Marathon's future, and that's all I can ask

Hello there, and welcome to another Friday edition of Campaign Mode. This week, I'm taking a closer look at the very, very, very lengthy writeup Bungie game director Joe Ziegler gave regarding the future of Marathon, and the various, partially conflicting feelings that the outline is giving me.

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Throwing shells into the fire

If you haven't read Zeigler's outline for what's coming in the many weeks and months ahead to its extraction shooter, Marathon, then I highly recommend doing so. If you still won't, let it suffice to say the team seems committed to the core audience it has cultivated, but with a real acknowledgement that the game needs to grow and is simply too difficult at multiple junction points.

To solve this, Bungie is working on more PvE and "PvP-lite" content that might make it a tad easier for prospective players to dive in across Tau Ceti IV. There's other fun additions, such as a nighttime version of Dire Marsh, a new Runner shell, and more.

I've already spoken at length about my love for Marathon and its brutal nature, but the fact is, it is extremely brutal. I consider myself a decently skilled player and it's frustrating to have stocked up for a week only to dive into Cryo Archive and not successfully make it out even once, dashed to pieces against an avalanche of grenades from gold-kitted Runners.

Yet...that brutality is the point. That frustration is why I love spending so much time in Marathon. I don't know how you solve those issues, and to be honest, I don't think Bungie is entirely sure either, but I appreciate that the studio is trying. It will be very easy to lose the balance, to edge too far into easy territory in pursuit of a wider audience.

I don't envy the position Bungie is in, but I think the team has an (admittedly narrow) path forward that can work, provided it is given the time to do so.

I've tried to steer away from the incessant talk of player count because some people have been extremely weird with Marathon, but the fact is, the game needs a larger audience in order to make money and in order to appease Bungie's parent company Sony. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's a basic (if unfortunate) reality.

I'll have to see how it goes, but even if these new modes and ideas don't 100% solve Marathon's population problem, I'm not sure what else the studio can try to do. The team seems clearly committed and open to experimentation, the latter of which is especially important after how long it took for many basic problems to be addressed across the studio's other ongoing game, Destiny 2.

Right now, Bungie is promising "New zones, zone changes and variants, new shells, new weapons, new equipment, and loot galore" as the game leans into the weirder, alien, dark sci-fi elements that are already present. Even as Season 2 is kicking off at the start of June, there are things to look forward to all the way through Season 5.

I can't ask for more than that.

Assorted news

There were a couple of truly huge game launches well worth paying attention to this week.

• Forza Horizon 6, the latest in the critically-acclaimed open-world racing series from Playground Games and Xbox Game Studios, is now available on Xbox and PC if you cough up extra for the highest-end $120 edition. Many players seem to be doing just that, as it's already reached 172,000 concurrent players on Steam alone.
• Subnautica 2 launched in early access on Xbox and PC, and saw an utterly-massive peak of 376,000 concurrent Steam players, with the developers confirming it's already sold over a million copies.
• Warhammer Skulls, a showcase all about Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 in video games, is returning on May 21, 2026, with Alanah Pearce (who is voicing a Battle Sister in the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2) hosting the presentation. Spoiler alert: This showcase will likely be the focus of next week's newsletter.

Housekeeping

I've been playing Directive 8020, Supermassive Games' latest entry in the narrative horror Dark Pictures series. It's fun, with impressive visuals beyond prior entries in the series.

I'm continuing to look forward to 007 First Light from IO Interactive, but increasingly feel like it (and Housemarque's Saros, I haven't forgotten!) will have to wait until after Summer Game Fest.

On that note, I've got some extremely cool stuff lined up. I can't talk about anything right now, but please, if you enjoy my writing, I ask you to share it, subscribe, and ask others to subscribe too. Needless to say I'll be putting out far, far more than just one newsletter a week when June arrives.