Prior to the May 24 PlayStation Showcase, many fans speculated that there would be a reveal of Bungie's first new IP since being acquired by Sony in 2022. What was less expected was that the new IP was going to be a revival of Bungie's Marathon, albeit with a style and tone much more consistent with the studio's work on Destiny rather than the linear 90s FPS the series was known for. Perhaps most surprising about the reveal of Marathon is the confirmation that the title will be multi-platform and support cross-play at launch, making good on Sony's promise regarding its acquisition of the developer and commitment to allowing it to continue making titles for non-Sony hardware.
News of Sony's Bungie acquisition came shortly after the initial announcement of Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Both of these high-profile purchases of successful third-party studios paved the way for the current landscape of hardware manufacturers bolstering their stable of developers with acquisitions of talented studios, and recent rumors indicate that Sony intends to continue this strategy. Now, news of Marathon's playability across multiple platforms comes as a stark contrast to how Microsoft handled cross-platform releases of titles from Bethesda Studios.
Sony Staying True to Its Word Is Great News for Gamers
On the whole, studio acquisitions are good for the industry in that they encourage competition among console manufacturers. There's little argument to be made against Sony's strategy of having groundbreaking system exclusives having worked well for them, both during the PS4 era and currently with the PS5's roadmap. One of the concerns commonly held among players when larger companies buy up studios is that games will become exclusive to the platform of their parent companies. Again, a perfect example of this is how Microsoft has handled Bethesda and its subsidiaries' output since acquiring the studio.
When Sony purchased Bungie, it made the explicit point of its intention to allow Bungie to steer its own ship by continuing to make cross-platform games. With Marathon being the first project realized under that new partnership and being confirmed for cross-platform play, Sony has set an example for other companies as to how studio acquisitions should be handled.
While it's safe to assume that either system or timed-exclusive titles will be born of Sony's new ownership of Bungie, the fact that the studio will still be free to make games playable on other consoles could inspire other console manufacturers to allow the same with their first-party studios. This could then give way to the innovation and excellence that healthy competition tends to inspire.
Marathon's Cross-Platform Release Could Bode Well for Call of Duty
Sony Interactive Entertainment's President and CEO Jim Ryan made headlines throughout most of 2022 thanks to his efforts toward actively dissuading the Microsoft-Activision merger. One of the chief complaints lodged by Ryan was that Call of Duty (which is owned by Activision) is such a massive force and one of the most successful IPs of all time.
A future where Activision-Blizzard is owned by Microsoft would give the company sole ownership over Call of Duty and prevent what is arguably the most successful video game franchise from making its way to Sony's platforms. While Microsoft promised that it had intentions to ensure Call of Duty's presence on PlayStation for years after the acquisition was finalized, it's not far-fetched to imagine a future where the company pivoted Call of Duty to be one of the Xbox's flagship exclusives.
If Sony is willing to be a participant in the push-and-pull tug-of-war between console manufacturers over system exclusives while also allowing their first-party studios to make multi-platform games, it may serve as an example for how Microsoft chooses to handle future Call of Duty releases. Whatever the case, Marathon's existence as a multi-platform title is a refreshing instance of a hardware manufacturer making good on its promises.
Marathon is currently in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.