We’d like to start this update with a big thank you to everyone who has joined us in the Marathon community or signed up for Alpha since our reveal showcase last weekend.

As developers we believe community feedback and dialog is essential to make the best version of Marathon. Up until now, this feedback has come from closed playtest sessions. In the spirit of building towards that future, we’ve decided to remove the NDA from our Closed Alpha Test. Everyone can share their thoughts, feedback, and footage, including streaming starting on April 23.


This is a true closed technical test of Marathon. What that means is that you’ll be playing an incomplete version of the game. Our primary goal is to test two things: technical capabilities and our moment-to-moment gameplay loop. We plan to break stuff.

Alpha is a curated, limited slice of systems and content. We welcome feedback across the board, but the areas we are most keen to hear your thoughts on are:

• Weapons and gunplay
  
• Maps and survival gameplay
  
• Runners, including kits and build-crafting
  
• Early-game progression, including factions, contracts, and faction upgrades
  
• PvP engagements against other Runners
  
• PvE engagements against AI combatants

It’s important to note the Alpha is NOT the complete game. It does not include:

• Final visuals and graphics, including animations and lighting
  
• Full and polished UI
  
• All Runners
  
• All zones, including the Marathon Ship
  
• Pinnacle and end game content
  
• All weapons, items, consumables, implants, cores, and mods
  
• All factions and upgrades
  
• Long term progression and systems
  
• Complete narrative and storytelling systems and final shipping content
  
• Ranked play
  
• Final balance

We’ll be hosting developer Q+As, streams, and jumping in with other creators all next week. See you on Tau Ceti IV.


Keeping an open dialogue is a crucial part of Alpha and beyond. We’ve been tracking several topics since Reveal and we’re looking forward to seeing and hearing your feedback as you play Alpha. After the Closed Alpha Test ends, we'll be summarizing the major things we heard, our thoughts, and what comes next.

If you haven’t already, make sure to hop into the Discord[discord.com] and sign-up for Alpha for your chance to play. And if you are outside of NA, we will have additional opportunities for you to play Marathon before release later this year. We are still in the process of configuring our global datacenters, and they aren't ready for large-scale public testing yet.

In the meantime, Traxus sends regards.

Today we shared the first look at Marathon’s gameplay in our livestream from Bungie headquarters, and now we’re here to recap the highlights!

In the Gameplay Reveal Showcase, we sat down with game director Joe Ziegler, franchise art director Joseph Cross, senior design lead Lars Bakken, gameplay director Andrew Witts, and senior social media manager Andy Salisbury to chat about everything from favorite Runners to gunplay to expanding the Marathon legacy.

Want to see the full show? Check out the VOD below. It has all of the videos you’ll see here, plus a bunch of extra details and fun moments with the team.

Just want the highlights? You’re in the right place. You can find all of the trailers, creator footage, and the cinematic short debuted in the stream, plus some bonus tidbits. Let’s get to it!


The Marathon Closed Alpha Test runs from April 23 to May 4, and Marathon launches on September 23, 2025. Wishlist on Steam to keep up with the latest news.

Want to sign up for your chance to join the first playtest? Join the official Discord[discord.gg] and follow the steps in the server to sign up. We’ll be inviting players at the start of the playtest and throughout the playtest, so keep an eye on your inbox.

The Closed Alpha Test will be available to players who are 18+ and located in North America. It’ll be a fairly small playtest as we test our technical capabilities and gather important feedback before bigger tests. We know there are lots of you who won’t be able to get in (yet), and we see you. Please hold tight! We'll be there soon 🫡

We kicked off the livestream with a trailer showing a high-speed look at Marathon’s gameplay. It’s a good place to start, if you want a lot of vibes and gunplay action.

Run. 🏃‍♀️

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into Marathon’s gameplay, peep the overview narrated by none other than Ben Starr.

This overview goes into more details about your runs, like how many players are in a match, the basics of Runners and customizing your playstyle, and the ways Marathon supports three-player crews (or solo play, if you’re looking for an extra challenge).

Fun fact: This video used to say “going in gigachad” until we came to our senses. There may or may not be a clip of Ben Starr saying this in our archives...

During Marathon’s development, we invited players and creators to playtest earlier than we ever have before. We hosted multiple play sessions before even entering production so we could evolve the game alongside players’ feedback. This is something we’ll continue doing on the journey to launch and forever after.

To that...

Two weeks ago, we invited around 30 creators to Bungie HQ for a first look at Marathon. This next video highlights some of our favorite moments from the creator alpha summit!

Want to see more gameplay footage directly from your favorite creators? Head to YouTube, TikTok, or wherever they typically post content. There’s a chance they also shared their own video(s) from the event.

You can drop by the channels of... deep breath

➡️ Redberry, Blue Thunder, Luke Stephens, TuxBird, Skarrow9, Tdawgsmitty, Jake Lucky, Bearki, Welyn, Tony Ceno, DrLupo, stankRat, HiddenXperia, Natarsha, Drewsky, cbgray, Gotaga, Hiper, Steyb, Elxokas, Zelling, Espresso, SwampFoxTV, JesseKazam, Esportscenter, SpectreX Gaming, TenZ, Kyedae, lucyjamesgames, Valkyrae, Kkatamina

Thanks again to everyone who came out, we had a blast. Can’t wait to see more of you in game soon!

Storytelling in multiplayer games does have challenges, but we’re committed to doing it and doing it well. With Marathon, we want to tell stories and build a world in which those stories can and will unfold.

“Marathon’s revival is both a reimagining of and a direct successor to the original games,” says Narrative Director Julia Nardin. “We want to honor the franchise’s history while creating a new point-of-entry for fans.”

“Those who have been with Bungie from the very beginning will recognize characters, locations and events from the original trilogy, but they may also discover that those events played out slightly differently than they might remember,” says Nardin.

One of our goals is for each season of Marathon to bring new mysteries and stories for you and your friends to explore. Some of this will happen through in-game moments—like community events, missions, in-world collectibles, and more—and some of it will go beyond the game, like with our recent ARG and today's cinematic short.

Our reveal short was a collaboration between our team at Bungie and writer and director Alberto Mielgo, who you might recognize as the director of “The Witness” and “Jibaro” in Love, Death & Robots.

No Runners were harmed in the making of this film (we promise)

That’s all we had time for before the UESC kicked us all out (typical UESC 🙄).

But really, thank you to everyone who joined us on stream, is reading this post now, solved puzzles in the ARG, or shared your excitement with us.

We’ll be sharing so much more in the weeks and months ahead. If you’d like to keep up with the latest news and join our team for things like live Q+As in the future, come join us in the community Discord[discord.gg]!

We'll also be popping into the comments, so hit us with your thoughts, questions, and anything you want to hear more about. 🐛