Bungie will reportedly position Marathon, its upcoming multiplayer shooter and reboot of the series of the same name, as a premium $40 product, even after Sony’s Concord launched with the same price tag to catastrophic results.
The report comes from Paul Tassi at Forbes who spoke to a “source with knowledge of Marathon,” and learned that Bungie considered pivoting after the lackluster performance of Embark Studios’ free to play multiplayer shooter, The Finals. When Sony found runaway success at the $40 price point with Helldivers 2, that apparently pushed Bungie to pull the trigger on the move.
Of course, it wasn’t long after Helldivers 2’s success that Sony took another stab at a $40 premium shooter with Concord and that didn’t go well at all, to say the least. Despite Concord’s spectacular failure to gain traction in the crowded shooter market, Bungie will reportedly push forward with its premium pricing for Marathon due to the state of development being “simply too far along to pivot back to free to play,” says Tassi.
The report also suggests that the extraction shooter will adopt a class/hero shooter style system similar to Apex Legends, but with more expanded customization options. According to Tassi, we’ll have to wait until spring 2025 to get a closer look at the game.
