Bungie Explains Why Marathon is an Extraction Shooter and is Not Free-to-Play

It’s a bold move to stand up an extraction shooter game in this day and age. Many have come before and have fallen short of expectations, and the ones that have stuck around have effortlessly dominated the scene – I’m looking at you, Escape from Tarkov.

Regardless, Bungie is breaking into the genre with Marathon, an upcoming extraction shooter set in a sci-fi universe. In a recent interview, Gaming World Media’s Jake Lucky sat down with Joe Ziegler, the game’s director, to learn exactly why the team wants to try making a success of an extraction shooter when so many have failed.

‘Super Exciting and Super Unique’

The extraction shooter model ebbs and flows, but it’s fast becoming a staple of the wider industry, with many developers having thrown their hat in the ring. The next biggest studio working on an extraction shooter is Bungie, breaking into the vertical with Marathon, a reboot of a game from the 1990s.

Here’s the full interview:

When Jake Lucky caught up with Joe Ziegler after a session testing Marathon, he asked why the team had aimed to produce an extraction shooter when the market has a tentative reception at best for new games in that space.

Extraction shooters to us symbolise this rare circumstance in gaming where you have a lot of different choices inside of a game experience, and all of them become meaningful in a weird way. As you’re playing it, you get these really dramatic stories that occur about survival. Every decision you make kind of becomes a point of regret or a point of excitement.

This idea that behind the corner there’s this brand new light that could exist there or this dark hole that you will get destroyed in. That adventurous aspect of trying to survive a dangerous environment is just super exciting and super unique, and I think that’s really why the extraction shooter was such a perfect game for us to make.

It’s because, the studio likes to do these crazy FPS experiences that really have uplifting and very emotionally engaging moments – we wanted to take that to the next level with something like Marathon.

The team explained that, with Marathon, they want to create a social extraction experience that’s more enjoyable, accessible, and entertaining. It’s not trying to become the next Escape from Tarkov and it’s certainly not as punishing as the 10-year-old Battlestate Games extraction shooter.

Marathon is all about revelling in an adventure with friends, that’s why the core gameplay loop is accessible only in a team format – for now. Bungie wants players to have an exciting experience that never culminates in a depressing loss after an hour in a single raid, which can be typical for Escape from Tarkov players.

Are you looking forward to this new extraction shooter, or do you think the genre is done?

Marathon Won’t Be Full Price, But Players Will Still Have to Pay

In a lengthy Marathon impressions piece on GameSpot, Tamoor Hussain writer wrote that Marathon will launch September 23rd as a “premium product, meaning players will be asked to pay full price.” Hussain also confirmed that the game will feature a seasonal content model with its own battle pass, three maps at launch (a fourth coming later), and a persistent story.

Before players panic about having to pay $70 though, it’s already been reported that Marathon’s price point won’t be close to that figure. Forbes gaming writer Paul Tassi, who’s long covered Bungie and Destiny, stated on X that they’ve received confirmation that Marathon is not $70, and will be “not even close” to that number. The official Marathon account has since confirmed that the game will be a premium title, but not full-priced, and stated that more details would be announced in the summer.

As Tassi wrote in an earlier post, releasing closer to $30 or $40 “of course still comes with its own risks.” Several players reacting to the reveal that Marathon won’t be free-to-play immediately are already making comparisons to Concord. Concord, a multi-player shooter released in 2024 as the debut game for Firewalk Studios, launched at a $40 price point for its standard edition. Sadly for Firewalk, the game received luke-warm receptions from critics, and failed to establish any sort of reliable player base. Within two weeks of launch, the game was shut down, and Firewalk Studios was closed two months later, in what’s considered one of the biggest launch disasters in gaming history.

While Bungie has the distinct advantage of a far more impressive track record to boast, Marathon will still face the same challenge: attaching a premium price point for a game that will compete in a saturated market of free-to-play titles.