Bungie's latest game, Live Service extraction shooter Marathon, has been dogged by controversy for some time now.

Reports that production wasn't going going smoothly emerged last year, (1) followed in the last few months by a scandal where the game was found to be using stolen art, (2) reports that morale at Bungie was at an "all time low", (3) and now apparently it's marketing plans have been cancelled:

https://www.thegamer.com/marathon-bungie-sony-playstation-marketing-canceled-live-service-game/

With so much negativity surrounding the title, do you think the game can still be a success, or are we looking at another high profile flop, the sort of which is becoming increasingly common in recent years?

(1) https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/marathon-development-is-reportedly-facing-trouble-at-bungie-theres-a-reason-that-it-was-planned-for-this-year-and-slipped-a-whole-year/

(2) https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/05/16/bungie-stealing-marathon-art-is-probably-the-last-straw/

(3) https://gamerant.com/marathon-stolen-art-assets-bungie/

I don't know, according to Phil Spencer the Bungie Team is doing incredible work and the reveal of Marathon is what gamers want. So yeah it will be huge.

Concord 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Pretty sure this will crash, it launches into an oversaturated genre and has nothing special to offer. Add to that the various hickups and scandals (asset theft among them), really poor reception of the gameplay videos, and there isn't much to indicate it will be a success. I think the entire production is about 4-5 years too late. We're seeing this happening a lot now, due to development/production times of modern games, they fall behind trends and end missing the window. Then again; I've been wrong before, only the launch itself will show. I think there's consensus that it's not looking good though.

The game looks unique enough that, combined with the pedigree of Bungie, will definitely reach an audience.
But the art controversy is probably most at play here, to the point where the entire visual identity of the game is in question now.

Bungie will be fine, albeit I expect layoffs unfortunantely. As for Marathon, can't say I'm too conviced it's coming out anymore, which is a pity. Best case scenario is the failure of this leads to final restructiuring of Bungie under SIE.

Most of this is completely overblown by clickbait grifters that got picked up by low-end journalists, like Paul Tassi, and pushed hard because it got a lock of clicks. The stolen assets was mana from heaven for them, as it gave a lot of people a platform to legitimise their hate. Previously the ragebait videos had titles like “Marathon: Do or DEI?”

How much effect it will have on the game is hard to say. The reality is that there is actually a lot of people willing to play this game and give it a chance. There is 399k people in the Marathon Discord, which peaked at like 430k during the application process for the Alpha(application was through Discord). For the North American closed alpha they only gave out invites to around 10% of applicants and the closed Alpha still had peak steam numbers 10X Concords release day peak. So referring to it as another Concord is definitely nonsense. Whether or not people actually liked the game or not is hard to ascertain since there as so many trolls accounts and haters around this game. The Reddit is only 33k( a fraction of discord) so discussion can easily be overwhelmed by a small minority of haters(which is the case).

I played the Alpha and the core gameplay is actually amazing. It’s only the 2 low level maps though and it had no real reason to keep playing or anything to really aim for(outside of levelling up your reputation with the corporations and unlocking more of the “Skill trees”). There is another high level map and a end game level map that will be available “Shortly after release” (its probably available right away but will need to be unlocked by the community) and that map is the Marathon itself which is probably insanely cool to play. A lot of the aspects of the game can be improved quite easily, but some of the major complaints wont be fixable(it uses Heroe style characters, sort off) in the short term.

I don't think it'll be another Concord level flop but I'll be surprised if it's a success at this point. Interest in the title isn't high and Arc Raiders looks like it could steal the extraction shooter show this year though a delay into 2026 could help with that part.

Considering that interest in Destiny 2 is also at its lowest point ever Sony must not be happy with their decision to acquire Bungie. Other than The Final Shape being well received Bungie hasn't been doing too hot since that acquisition was completed.

I have not seen alot of positive sentiment for it online so I assume it's cooked.

This. There is something really strange going on with the gaming community and Sony's GaaS games as they are getting dog-piled on in a way I've never seen before. With Concord, people were acting as if the games failure would be the end of Sony. There was a very popular thread here on VGChartz that was solely dedicated to the failure of concord, and it got so crazy that the mods had to move the thread to the politics section. 

Bungie is a huge studio, and they know how to make a good game. They've done it before and they can do it again. 

You've forgotten to use the "magic" word like BioWare would use ;)

I mean if you face the fact that current Bungie is basically unlike the one that actually created OG Marathon and the first Halo trilogy, then you're just left with a namesake that has basically lost it's value over the current years. 

Multiple reports how the top management over there isn't helping the matter either and you've got a studio over the precipice of a downward spiral effect if they can't get a enough big success with their next game.