Report: Bungie considers $40 price tag for Marathon, with one source saying that game feels "worth" it

A new report on Bungie’s upcoming extraction shooter Marathon claims that the game might use a premium model and shares some other details about its development.

• Bungie considered ditching the free-to-play model for Marathon, The Game Post reported on September 16, citing several sources familiar with the matter. Instead, the studio discussed a $40 price tag.
• It is an interesting choice in the current market environment where multiplayer games tend towards the F2P monetization. Bungie hasn’t yet officially shared any details about its pricing strategy for the game, so the studio could change its mind about the premium model — especially given the recent failure of Sony’s Concord (also priced at $40).
• Sources told The Game Post that selected streamers and Bungie’s internal teams are regularly playtesting Marathon, with some claiming the game feels “worth” the $40 price tag.
• According to the report, there are currently two playable maps, but it is unclear how many will be included in the final version.
• Marathon is described as an extraction shooter with a “Bungie twist,” with users choosing between various classes with their own playstyles and abilities.
• The report also claims that “morale within Bungie remains low,” with devs being frustrated with studio management.
• In July, Bungie laid off 220 employees and announced a restructuring, which includes integrating 155 devs into other teams within SIE and spinning off one of its unannounced projects into a newly formed PlayStation studio.

The upcoming game is based on Bungie’s Marathon IP, a series of first-person shooters originally released for the Apple Macintosh in the 1990s. The new Marathon project, announced in May 2023, won’t serve as a sequel or remake of any previous titles. It is expected to come out both on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

As for the potential $40 price tag, things are a little more complicated. On the one hand, we have Concord and its disastrous launch (the premium model, however, was only part of the problem). But on the other hand, Sony has a massive success of Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 (priced at $40), which sold over 12 million units globally in three months.

While most multiplayer shooters are free-to-play these days, some still utilize the premium model. For example, Escape from Tarkov asks $50 for its standard edition (not to mention its $250 version).

It is unclear whether the $40 price tag will be justified for Marathon as we still don’t know anything about the game, its mechanics, additional monetization, as well as its overall quality upon launch.