Sony CFO Lin Tao says Marathon is still in active development, with Bungie “fully dedicated” to launching the game within the current fiscal year. (by March 2026)
Bungie’s upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, has had a rollercoaster year. The game was originally targeting September 23, 2025, before Bungie confirmed an indefinite delay to rework core systems and polish the early experience. The delay announcement came after the huge art plagiarism controversy that led to a public apology from the studio’s art leadership, which added even more scrutiny to development.
Behind the scenes, Bungie has been running monthly playtests. After the closed alpha, the studio ran monthly invite-only playtests throughout the summer, including a technical test last month.
Earlier this year, Sony said that it planned to launch Marathon within fiscal year 2025, which runs through March 2026, while acknowledging the team needed time to fix problems flagged by feedback. Now, during Sony’s Q2 FY25 earnings call, CFO Lin Tao shared a fresh update on how development is progressing.
Sony gives new update on Bungie’s Marathon development
Tao’s comments came during the Q&A portion of the call, when she was asked about Marathon’s development status. She confirmed that Marathon is still very much in development, and that Bungie recently conducted a major technical test from October 22 to October 28 (extended by two days) that involved around 80,000 players.
The goal of the test, she said, was to gather data around gameplay feel and player retention. Tao reaffirmed that Sony is “fully dedicated to launching the title as scheduled,” adding that the company “assume[s] that [it] will launch within the year,” While she didn’t specify whether she meant the calendar or fiscal year, this almost certainly refers to Sony’s fiscal year, which ends in March 2026, as previously mentioned by the company.
“With regards to the development of Marathon, we are still working on it,” Tao said. “From October 22nd and then 28th for a week, there is a technical test that involves 80,000 people. As a result, the gameplay and then retention, those are the key KPIs that we tested on.
“And then we are in the process of analyzing the performance against those KPIs, and as needed, we will make corrections, and we are fully dedicated to launching the title as scheduled. And yes, we assume that we will launch this within the year, and that is included in the forecast.”
Alongside the update on Marathon, Tao also addressed Destiny 2’s recent performance, saying that sales and player engagement “have not reached” what Sony expected when it acquired Bungie in 2022. Sony recorded a ¥31.5 billion (~$204 million USD) impairment loss related to Bungie’s Destiny 2 assets.
As The Game Post previously reported, the game has seen major updates since the closed alpha, including visual improvements, a new Codex system, and more. We also reported that Roger Clark, Red Dead Redemption 2‘s lead voice actor for Arthur Morgan, is voicing a character in Marathon.
What do you think about Sony’s comments? Do you believe Marathon can stick the landing by next March? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
