Sony is determined to ensureMarathondoesn’t become another Concord.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hermen Hulst, during anannual business presentation(viaPush SquareandEurogamer), reflected on Sony’s recent history with live service games, including boththe catastrophic failure of Concordandthe difficulties facing the upcoming Marathon.
Looking back on Concord, Hulst acknowledged that Concord wasn’t adequately “differentiated” to properly “resonate with players,” given that its market segment is “highly competitive.”
To that end,Sony is hoping to do better with Marathon,as well as with Fairgame$, another live service shooter in development.
Will Marathon Be Any Different?
According to Hulst, Sony has learned from their mistakes, and they’ve “introduced much more rigorous processes for validating our creative, commercial, [and] development assumptions.”
And now we do that on a much more ongoing basis. And that’s the plan that will ensure that we’re investing in the right opportunities at the right time, all while maintaining much more predictable timelines. –Hermen Hulst
That’s all well and good, but it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Marathon.
The extraction shooter has been faced with aplagiarism controversy over stolen art assets, which has reportedlycaused morale at Bungie to plunge, along with what Hulst charitably called“varied”response to the alpha.
The Sony business presentation listed Marathon as set for a fiscal year 2025 release window. That does include itsscheduled release date of September 23, but the vagueness could suggest that the game may end up releasing as late as March 2026.
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Either the scheduled date or the wider window would put Marathon in direct competition withARC Raiders,another extraction shooter launching on October 30, which has seenits own round of controversy latelyas developer Embark Studios apologized for mismanaging the hype around the game’s release date.
All in all, Hulst says Sony is committed to building “diverse and resilient” live service games, referring not just to Marathon, but also to the heist game Fairgame$, which we knowhas been delayed to 2026and has been dealing withits own set of issues with its playtest.
This is despitethe wave of cancellations of live-service projectsby Sony over the past year; maybe it’s all part of their “more rigorous processes.”
WHERE TO PLAY
ARC Raiders Preview: A Rare Original Extraction Shooter
This game is exactly what the extraction genre has been crying out for.
