2026 has been a terrible year for Bungie. With Marathon failing to garner a major audience base, and Destiny 2 being all-but-shut-down, the future of this once iconic studio remains in flux. Adding to the confusion, Marathon’s Game Director Joseph Ziegler has now announced that he is departing the studio.

Taking to Twitter to make the announcement, Joseph Ziegler confirmed that he will be parting ways with Bungie, writing: “Friday 7/17, will be my last day at Bungie and I'll be passing the torch of Game Director to the very capable and amazing hands of Del Chafe III, who will guide the game forward alongside the Creative Director Julia Nardin. Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future.”

Unlike the recent retirement of industry veteran Glen Schofield, Ziegler appears to be staying in the games industry for now, adding: “As for me, I'll be heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon. I just want to say a deeply heartfelt thank you to all of you for supporting me and Marathon in our windy mission to bring a dark and terrifying space survival frontier to your screen.”

The full post can be found HERE, and includes plenty of pleasantries towards Ziegler’s fellow Bungie developers.

For the uninitiated, Joseph Ziegler was brought in to help direct Marathon back in 2022, following the departure of Christopher Barrett. Formerly the director for Riot Games’ Valorant, Ziegler helped to push Marathon past the finish line – for better or for worse.

While the state of Marathon right now is far from perfect, the team do have quite a bit planned, most recently confirming that they will be bringing in some form of permanent PvE mode in the future.

Either way, the departure of Ziegler is a big deal, and marks another pivotal moment for this struggling live-service title. Hopefully the new management can help turn things around.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What do you think of this latest departure? Is this good or bad news for Marathon in the long-term? Let us know down below.

Bungie announced plans to bring an experimental PvE mode to Marathon last month. The limited-time version of this mode will still be happening, but it will be back sooner than expected, as Bungie has already decided that PvE will now become a permanent part of Marathon. 

In an announcement this week, Bungie confirmed that its limited-time Vault Breaker PvE mode for Marathon will eventually be a permanent fixture of the game. The mode will first go live from July 21st until August 4th. After that, Bungie will make some changes based on feedback, before bringing the mode back permanently during Marathon Season 3, which begins in late September.

In Vault Breaker, players head to the Cryo Archive map with a unique loadout kit specific to this game mode. Instead of extracting with all of your gear, players of this mode instead earn a new in-game currency called Vault Data upon extraction. This currency can then be used to upgrade gear for your next run, as there are no other players to shoot and steal high value loot from.

Marathon launched as a hardcore, competitive extraction shooter. Players quickly discovered that the game and its seasonal nature aren't exactly friendly to ‘casual' players, as they will quickly be wiped out by players who have grinded matches every single day for much more powerful gear. It became pretty clear from the launch sales numbers of Marathon that Bungie has to do more to appeal to a broader audience here, and it looks like PvE is part of the plan to do that.

On top of that, permanent PvE is likely the only way to convince a lot of Destiny players to try out the game, although that may still be an uphill battle anyway, as Destiny fans aren't exactly happy about their game being killed off to give extra resources to Marathon.

KitGuru Says: Hopefully the Vault Breaker mode can be something of a re-launch for Marathon. Permanent PvE can only help their chances of surviving in the long-term, as long as Bungie is capable of supporting both PvE and PvP sides of the game equally. Unfortunately, doing that turned out to be a huge struggle for them during Destiny 2's lifespan. 

In the PlayStation 5 generation, Sony Computer Entertainment's software output hasn't been as impressive as it was in the previous console generation. Due to SIE’s aggressive live service push, the Japanese publisher released several games - such as the ill-fated Concord from Firewalk Studios and Marathon from Bungie - that did not meet players' expectations. Despite this, President Hideaki Nishino confirmed they will continue to pursue live-service games, even as he heavily hints at a PlayStation 6 handheld designed to meet the changing playstyles of gamers worldwide. "We believe that live service games are content that attracts users on a […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/playstation-continue-to-push-live-service-games-teases-playstation-6-handheld/

The final update for Destiny 2 went live a little more than two weeks ago, on June 9, 2026. Today, in the wake of Bungie putting the game and franchise it had been working on for over a decade down, the studio announced its latest round of layoffs, as a statement shared on its official X (formerly Twitter) account reads "we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size." This is, unfortunately, exactly what was expected to happen with Destiny 2's sunsetting. It hadn't even been 24 hours between the announcement that Destiny 2 would stop receiving content updates […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/bungie-layoffs-in-wake-of-destiny-2-final-update/

With Destiny 2 now fully in the rear view, the team at Bungie is full-steam ahead on Marathon, though that hasn't resulted in a sudden uptick in players swarming the extraction shooter. Season 2 is going about as well as Season 1, and despite its critical acclaim and a small dedicated core group of players, Marathon continues to struggle to attract the kinds of numbers multiplayer games are practically required to earn to find commercial success. But if Bungie can keep iterating and tweaking Marathon, it wouldn't be the first time, nor likely the last, that a multiplayer game found […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/marathon-season-2-pve-mode-vault-breaker-bungie-season-3-release-date/

While the game saw a relatively solid launch, Bungie’s Marathon has suffered in the months since, with one of its biggest detractors being the fact that the extraction shooter does not offer anything in the way of a PvE experience – making the barrier to entry far higher in some people’s minds. That said, Bungie have promised to bring some level of PvE support to the game, with the first step in this direction set to go live next month in the form of a new ‘Vault Breaker’ mode.

Prior to the launch of Marathon's second Season, the team at Bungie shared their initial plans for the future of the PvP focused extraction shooter, revealing intentions to introduce some form of PvE mode. Taking to their blog, the team at Bungie have now detailed many of the major additions set to be joining Marathon with the launch of Season 2.5 next month.

Going live on the 21st of July, the most notable addition is easily that of their new Vault Breaker mode. Described as an “experimental PVE mode” this upcoming addition will allow players to: “Explore Cryo Archive as a crew, duo, or a solo player, taking on a progressively challenging series of vaults. Grow stronger across multiple matches with progression that’s unique to Vault Breaker, and push towards the final vault and the mysterious entity within.”

Seemingly functioning somewhat as a rogue-like, Bungie explains how “Vault Breaker requires a special Sponsored Kit to queue up, and any gear or items you find stay behind when you exfil.”

That said, players will be able to obtain a currency known as Vault Data which “when extracted, can be exchanged for upgrades to your Vault Breaker Sponsored Kits as well as gear that can be used in other modes.”

Alongside this new mode, Season 2.5 will also bring new updates to Marathon’s Cradle Evolution system – adding a form of prestige while giving players who do so benefits in the form of higher max energy points and some cosmetic rewards.

Last but not least, Bungie confirmed that Season 3 is happening, and will be coming relatively soon, with its 22nd of September launch seeing new additions such as “a revamp of Perimeter”; a new Runner shell; addition weapons, equipment and more.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What do you think of the current state of Marathon? Does this PvE mode sound enticing? Could Marathon find greater success in the long-run if they continued to embrace PvE? Let us know down below.

Last year's Ghost of Yotei is currently this year's best-selling first-party PlayStation Studios title, according to a new report from Alinea Analytics. The latest from Sucker Punch is closing in on an estimated 5 million copies sold since launch, the report claims, and as we officially transition to the back-half of 2026, it's estimated 1.1 million copies sold within 2026 is carrying the load for PlayStation's first-party portfolio. That's not the biggest shock, considering the only other first-party PlayStation releases so far this year are Marathon and Saros, both games that received heavy critical praise, but neither has been able […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/ghost-of-yotei-nears-5m-copies-sold-carrying-the-load-playstation-first-party-2026/

Bungie has now shipped its final content patch for Destiny 2 and will soon begin to shift all of its resources over to Marathon. However, due to mounting financial pressures, Bungie will also reportedly undergo significant downsizing. 

Fans expecting Bungie to secretly be working on new Destiny projects are likely to be disappointed by the most recent news. At its peak Bungie had more than a thousand developers all working on Destiny 2. By 2024, that number had shrunk to around 800, with a good chunk of the studio now working on Marathon while others worked on smaller-scale expansions for Destiny 2.

The smaller scoped expansions idea ultimately didn't work, with both The Edge of Fate and Renegades suffering from low sales throughout 2025. As a result, Bungie has pulled the plug on Destiny entirely and is now transitioning to solely focus on Marathon, its latest live-service multiplayer IP. This all led up to the release of a final content patch for Destiny 2 earlier this month, which has incidentally also revitalised the game a bit, with hundreds of thousands of players on Steam alone returning to say goodbye to the game for good.

However, despite the success of the most recent Destiny patch, Bungie is moving ahead with its plans to downsize and focus on Marathon. According to Sylvain, a French journalist, Bungie is set to undergo “massive layoffs” this summer, potentially starting as soon as July. It has also been claimed that Bungie will look to reduce its headcount by as much as 50%.

While unconfirmed by Bungie or its parent company, Sony, such a downsizing would hamper Bungie's ability to develop multiple AAA games simultaneously, making a future Destiny 3 or a spin-off game more unlikely.

KitGuru Says: I really like a lot about Marathon's world building and visual style. Unfortunately, extraction shooters aren't my thing, so unless there is a pivot towards more PvE content, I don't think I'll be going back to it. Would I have played more Destiny though? Absolutely. 

With Bungie officially moving on from Destiny 2, and its other projects in very early stages of development, all eyes are now on Marathon; with the PvP extraction shooter needing to gain more traction if it wants to make it past the first year. Alongside some major sweeping changes coming with Season 2 and beyond, the team at Bungie have now announced that the next update will arrive alongside a week-long ‘open play’ session.

A couple weeks ago, Bungie began to share its plans for Marathon moving into Season 2 and beyond, committing to adding “new fun and mind-bending content;” better progression; easier onboarding and more PvE focused experiences.

Sharing their full Season 2 content drop, Bungie have now confirmed that the 2nd of June will see the introduction of:

• Dire Marsh (Night) Zone
• New night-focused equipment
• New ‘Sentinel’ Runner shell
• Two new weapons
• 8 new weapon chips
• New ‘Cradle’ system for progression
• Faction improvements
• QoL enhancements including increased vault space

The full list of additions coming with Season 2 can be found HERE. Alongside all the new content however, Bungie is also making Marathon free-to-play for a period in what they are calling an “Open Play Week” – starting from the launch of Season 2 on the 2nd of June up until the 9th.

Marathon had a lot of baggage on its shoulders prior to launch, and even more so now in the wake of Destiny 2’s sunsetting. That said, if nothing else, Bungie does appear to be trying their hardest to turn the game into a major success.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Marathon so far? Will Season 2 be a big deal? Let us know down below.

With Bungie officially leaving Destiny 2 behind next month, it's full steam ahead on Marathon, which is now days away from entering its Season 2: Nightfall. Ahead of the season kicking off on June 2, 2026, developer Bungie revealed a developer insights video and accompanying blog post that dives into some of the biggest changes in Season 2, like a reworked progression system, the new Sentinel Runner Shell, the Night Marsh map, and more. You can check out the video below for the highlights of what's changing in Season 2, though if you want the nitty-gritty details short of what […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/marathon-season-2-new-runner-shell-progression-system-weapons-and-more/

Last week, Bungie dropped a bomb on the video game industry with the announcement that its nearly-decade spanning shooter, Destiny 2, is no longer in active development and would not receive any more major updates past June 9, 2026. To call it the end of an era is an understatement, but fans are already making their voice clear on what they want the studio to do next, as a petition for Destiny 3 has already garnered 180K signatures, which just so happens to be more than double the number of Marathon's peak concurrent player count on Steam. The petition began […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/fan-petition-destiny-3-doubles-marathon-peak-concurrent-player-count-steam/

Last night, Bungie officially announced that it is ending development of Destiny 2. Fans immediately began hoping that this would mean that Destiny 3 is entering development, but that turns out to not be the case.

According to sources speaking with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, who has an impeccable track-record with his reporting, Bungie has no plans to begin work on Destiny 3. Instead, Bungie will undergo another round of layoffs, while those remaining will be shifted to Marathon.

The report states that Bungie “doesn't have a new project lined up for Destiny 2's development team”. However, some of those who remain at Bungie after the next round of job cuts will be put into smaller ‘incubation teams' in the hopes of getting a new game greenlit, but these games won't necessarily be tied to the Destiny IP and ultimately, any new projects will need Sony's approval.

As you might imagine, Sony isn't exactly happy with Bungie right now. The company just recorded another $700+ million impairment loss on the acquisition of Bungie, meaning that the company is now worth significantly less than what Sony paid to acquire it several years ago. With that in mind, projects that are deemed ‘too expensive' or risky are unlikely to be greenlit. Destiny 3 likely fits into that category, as such a project would be a colossal undertaking, take 5+ years to complete and requiring the studio to ‘scale up' after multiple years of downsizing.

KitGuru Says: Marathon has been siphoning resources away from Destiny for years, to the detriment of the live game. Now that Destiny is officially dead, I'm not sure how Bungie expects to win those fans back – they certainly won't want to support Marathon after all of this. 

Bungie has just announced that Destiny 2 is receiving its final (and free) content update on June 9, after which there will be no more expansions or additions of any other kind. The developer admitted that, following the underwhelming release of the 2024 expansion, The Final Shape, only an episode in the slow but steady decline of the online first-person shooter game, it became clear that it was time to move forward and look toward new projects, which will now begin "incubation" work. The update, called Monument of Triumph, is designed as a comprehensive celebration of player achievements that integrates […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/bungie-pulls-the-plug-destiny-2-after-decade/

Bungie's new extraction shooter, Marathon, will start its Season 2 on June 2, 2026, and with that comes a lot of changes to the game. Every player will have their Vaults completely wiped as each new season brings with it a seasonal reset, new content will enter the game, and, just as Bungie did in Season 1, new experimental queues will be introduced. One of which, game director Joe Ziegler has confirmed, will be a PvE-only mode. In an extended reflection about how the launch and first season of Marathon went overall, Ziegler addressed many aspects of the game. Beginning […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/marathon-pve-only-mode-season-2/

Following a great deal of controversy, Bungie’s PvP extraction shooter Marathon released earlier this year to less-than-stellar player counts, with one of the core barriers to entry being its relatively hardcore nature. In an effort to entice more players to check out the game, Bungie have announced some pretty big changes coming to Marathon with its second Season – including the introduction of “pure PVP, PVE, and PVP-lite experiences.”

Releasing a lengthy blogpost discussing Marathon’s “launch, learnings, and what’s next” Bungie revealed that a ton of changes are coming to the game with its Second Season. Full details on everything coming can be found HERE, but some of the most notable include:

• Making the game “less grindy” and “more rewarding”
• Improvements across the board (including UX, matchmaking, endgame and more)
• “New fun and mind-bending content”
• More interesting progression
• Better onboarding for new players

Perhaps the biggest change coming however is the fact that Bungie have announced that they will introduce new PvE focussed experiences, claiming that “we want to build more survival experiences for different moods, like if you want to full sweat or lean back and chill”.

Though details are currently light, the team are said to be exploring “more pure PVP, PVE, and PVP-lite experiences.”

PvP focused extraction shooters can be major successes. That said, having a form of PvE does make sense for the game’s long-term health – especially as Bungie are known for being able to meld the two experiences. Full details on Marathon’s Second Season and beyond can be found HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Marathon in its current state? Would you welcome some type of PvE mode? Can Marathon turn things around? Let us know your thoughts down below.

When Marathon launched back in March, and after the launch of Cryo Archive, outside of dwindling player numbers, the dark cloud hanging over the game has been the question of how players will deal with Bungie's promise of seasonal resets. Of course, we don't know how that'll go until it happens, but we now know when it'll happen, as Bungie reveals that Season 2: Nightfall will start on June 2, 2026, and makes some significant changes for the remainder of Season 1. Beginning with what's changing for the rest of Season 1, arguably the biggest change is that Cryo Archive […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/marathon-season-2-release-date-bungie-prepares-for-reset/

We've seen a lot of estimates about Marathon's individual commercial performance, all of which has muddied the waters on whether the game has actually done well. Some charts have been more favourable, while the reality of its daily concurrent player numbers on Steam and its reported development costs tell a more negative story. Well, Sony's latest financial report spelled it out pretty clearly that Marathon and Bungie as a whole have underperformed. But it doesn't look like the company is giving up on the game anytime soon. Sony reported a massive impairment loss of nearly $800 million due to Bungie […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/sony-aims-to-improve-marathon-performance-bets-on-saros-wolverine-first-party-growth/

Bungie's new extraction shooter, Marathon, is still trying to find its footing as the latest triple-A multiplayer shooter on the market. While it's been critically praised by many (myself included), it seemingly hasn't reached the level of commercial success that Bungie or PlayStation Studios hoped it would reach. Despite that, Bungie isn't letting on that it has any concerns about Marathon, and in a recent interview has just re-emphasized how it has long-term plans for the game. As we continue to see multiplayer games launch with plenty of excitement and hullabaloo, only to die within a year for a myriad […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/bungie-emphasizes-long-term-commitment-to-marathon/

As we officially move closer towards 2026 being half-over, global analytics firm Newzoo's latest monthly report provides an insight into which of the biggest releases in March 2026 drove engagement and revenue, and which of this year's releases are at the top of the charts one quarter into the year. Unsurprisingly, it's Crimson Desert, Pokémon Pokopia, and Resident Evil Requiem at the top of the charts. All three games are at the top of the chart for best-selling games by revenue between January and March 2026. Requiem sits at the top, followed by Crimson Desert in second and Pokopia in […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/crimson-desert-pokemon-pokopia-dominate-pc-console-revenue-charts-march-2026-newzoo/