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In the wake of around 400 layoffs at Bungie<\/a>, the storied studio is looking for salvation. The axing is not closure, Sony isn\u2019t going that far, and I maintain that is not something it wants to have to do. You don\u2019t want to be the ones to kill off arguably the most influential shooter developer left in the industry with a decades-long legacy across two enormously popular series, Halo and Destiny.<\/p>\n Destiny 2 is now dead, the layoffs coming mainly as a result of that, the already-reduced force previously struggling to maintain a pricey game with paltry resources. But that leaves hundreds more developers still working on Bungie content, namely, Marathon. The next steps for the company, however, should probably not involve Marathon at all.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying to shut down Marathon. Yes, the game is in dire straits, but shuttering a second, brand new game after what just took place is probably a bridge too far, even for Sony. Marathon\u2019s plans are now mostly set in place, as outside of \u201cexperimental\u201d modes meant to grab new players, things like new runners, maps and map variants and gear in development are likely mostly set for the rest of the year (again, assuming the game gets a year from Sony).<\/p>\n The most important thing for Bungie right now is to get another game greenlit. This has been a consistent problem for a long time now, years in fact, where among a long list of incubating projects, nothing has come to pass outside of Marathon, despite all the money spent to dig up ideas. The second exception might be Gummy Bears, the mysterious live game that Sony carved off into a separate studio, existing entirely outside Bungie now, and not a factor in whether it lives or dies.<\/p>\n Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes<\/p>\n As it stands, there are no other greenlit projects at Bungie, even after many pitches involving new titles but also ones potentially using the Destiny IP, even if it isn\u2019t a full-on Destiny 3 (which has not and almost certainly will not be approved, given its scale and the risk Sony perceives there).<\/p>\n It is clear that Bungie is going to need something in the works to support Marathon, or simply the studio as a whole, in the future, however many years a new game takes to develop and release. In the Bungie layoff message,<\/a> Herman Hulst gestured to this, saying:<\/p>\n \u201cMarathon remains an important part of our portfolio, and we will continue to support the team as they build on the strong foundation established in Season 1 and 2, and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects. While it\u2019s too early to discuss, we are encouraged by the creativity and opportunities that lie ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ll brush past the \u201cstrong foundation\u201d for Marathon for now, but the incubation part indicates that Bungie is still getting a shake at new projects, despite all this. However, even getting one approved now would not involve any mass scaling up or rehiring, as early-stage projects need much smaller teams. Both in terms of development and team size, this would be a longer-term project, whatever it was.<\/p>\n The fear here, however, is that even if Bungie did get something approved, it would be yet another live service game that would abandon a core component of what made Bungie\u2019s past games successful, single-player\/co-op\/campaign\/PvE content, which Halo and Destiny both had in spades, and Marathon doesn\u2019t. Marathon\u2019s somewhat restrictive genre certainly works against it, but in the current state of Bungie and Sony, I don\u2019t think some other aping of a different genre would do much better. It would be close to the same kind of risk to make some sort of Bungie battle royale or arena shooter, even if it\u2019s more \u201caccessible\u201d than Marathon. This is not what the players who have supported Bungie for almost 30 years want to see, for the most part. Marathon, even with a cool world, intriguing lore, killer art direction, solid gunplay and more, simply cannot grab players the way a more traditionally structured Bungie game would. And I\u2019d argue that would be true to a certain extent even if it was a different PvP genre.<\/p>\n But something has to get approved if Bungie is going to exist as a studio. It is very clear that Bungie can not be sustained through Marathon alone, and Sony is either going to have to close the studio or give it time and money to invest in a significant new title, you know, the way it does with every one of its other single player studios who produce one-and-done games after years of silence. But Sony is not exactly a master decision-maker as of late, so whether this comes to pass is extremely uncertain.<\/p>\n Follow me on Twitter<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>,<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series<\/a> and The Earthborn Trilogy<\/a>.<\/p>\n