PlayStation Studios boss admits Marathon response has been 'varied' but says Sony is taking steps to ensure it's 'not going to make the same mistakes' it did with Concord

It has not been smooth sailing for Bungie's Marathon reboot since it was revealed in March 2023 with a stylish but ultimately empty teaser. After two years of questions and uncertainty, PC Gamer's resident Bungie whisperer Tim Clark declared it "definitely good" after getting hands-on time with it in April. But he had significant concerns nonetheless, "from a spooked Sony, to the inherently hostile nature of the genre, and Bungie's own chequered history with Destiny's live service model, monetisation, and especially PvP balancing." And with the game now just three months away—it's currently set to launch on September 23—there's a low-key but persistent expectation that it will be delayed.

PlayStation Studios chief Hermen Hulst indicated no such movement during a recent "fireside chat," however, saying that Sony continues to see live service games as a "great opportunity," even as he acknowledged that they're faced with "unique challenges" as well.

Naturally, Concord came up during his remarks: Hulst said "some really good work" went into it, but that ultimately it was "insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players." (Lest there be any doubt, this "chat" was aimed squarely at investors.)

Concord was one of the most spectacular videogame failures in recent memory, put out to pasture just two weeks after it went live. That, Hulst said, prompted a review of development processes at Sony to figure out how it all went so wrong, "and to ensure that we're not going to make the same mistakes again."

"We've introduced much more rigorous processes for validating—for revalidating our creative, our commercial, our development assumptions and hypotheses, and we now do that on a much more ongoing basis," Hulst said. "That's the plan that will ensure we're investing in the right opportunities at the right time, all while maintaining much more predictable timelines."

For Marathon specifically, Hulst said Sony is aiming to make "a very bold, very innovative and deeply engaging" game, and it's being very careful to ensure that all the necessary boxes are being checked.

"We're going through the test cycles, we're monitoring the closed alpha cycle that the team has just gone through. We're taking all the lessons learned, we're using the capabilities that we've built in analytics and user testing to understand how audiences are engaging with the title."

Interestingly, Hulst admitted that some of the feedback on Marathon so far has been "varied," which isn't the sort of thing you typically hear from videogame executives talking up the next big thing, especially when it's only a few months from launch. I would say that also holds true for his words about applying analytics to closed alpha testing to get a better idea of how things are going, which sounds to me like the sort of thing developers would typically be doing much earlier in the process.

But, acknowledging again that this showcase is for investors and not gamers, the focus here is not how awesome Marathon is going to be, but how Sony is going all-out to ensure it doesn't end up with another Concord debacle on its hands.

"The constant testing and the constant re-validation of assumptions that we just talked about, to me is just so valuable to iterate and to constantly improve the title," Hulst said. "So when launch comes, we're gonna give the title the optimal chance of success."

Which is good, because Marathon needs to be an unqualified success for Bungie: Destiny 2 is a fading flower, and Sony's impatience with the studio's floundering is becoming increasingly evident. A report in May said morale at the studio is in "free fall" following an art theft fiasco, and an apparently widespread belief among employees that a Marathon failure could spell the end of the studio.

In a supporting document, Sony still pegs Marathon for release in its 2025 fiscal year. That doesn't preclude a delay, though: Sony's FY25 doesn't end until March 31, 2026.

(Image credit: Sony)