Bungie’s Marathon is one of our favourite games of the year, but the brilliant extraction shooter has not sold particularly well. Combined with the low player counts of Destiny 2, the historic FPS studio is in a tough spot.
While Bungie has dedicated to years of additional updates for Marathon, Sony has marked the studio’s output as a mark against its earnings. Following the company’s acquisition of Bungie back in 2023 for $3.6 billion, the PlayStation owner has reported an impairment loss of $560 million.
Included in the company’s FY2025 Consolidated Financial Results presentation, Sony reported a full loss of almost $765 million on its Bungie acquisition across the financial year. Additionally, the company expects additional losses in the future.
Despite multiple founds of layoffs and a CEO replacement, Bungie has not gained any ground since facing similar pressure last year. While multiple changes have been made to Marathon to encourage more casual play, the game’s hardcore nature has seemingly turned many players away with concurrent player counts unfortunately continuing to fall.
As for the future of Bungie, there is additional content in the pipeline for both Destiny 2 and Marathon. However, rumours claim that the studio is also working on a number of different projects in the Destiny IP that could bring more money back into Sony’s investment.
According to renowned Destiny leakers, two projects are in development for the franchise: the long-awaited Destiny 3 and a Destiny 2 Classic. Seemingly inspired by World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 Classic would presumably return players to the golden age of Bungie’s MMOFPS, allowing players to experience Vaulted content again and return to old metas.
As for Destiny 3, very little is known about the projects existence. Nevertheless, if the project is indeed real, it should offer a new entry point for the franchise, and evolve the series further. Additionally, after years of fans asking for major technical improvements, a third game would, hopefully, be able to offer a platform without the worry of content vaulting.
At the time of writing, Marathon has sold approximately 1.2 million copies on all platforms, with 700,000 copies sold on PC. Season 2 of the extraction shooter officially launches next month with a new map, new Runner, and other improvements coming to the game. Season 3 will release three months later.
