Sony’s new subsidiaries Bungie and Firewalk Studios revealed their next big video game projects as part of the semi-regular PlayStation Showcase livestream.
Marathon marks the official return of one of Bungie’s first video game franchises, which was famous in the ‘90s for being one of the only, if not the only, series of first-person shooters that was exclusive to the Apple Macintosh. This is Bungie’s first new game since it launched Destiny 2 in 2017; its first brand new game in over a decade, since it’s been exclusively working on the Destiny series since roughly 2010; and the first Marathon game since Marathon Infinity in 1996.
Seattle-based Bungie describes the new Marathon as a “sci-fi PVP extraction shooter” that’s set in the same universe as the original games. You play as a runner, sent to investigate a lost colony on the planet Tau Ceti IV, in search of fame, artifacts, and “troves of untold riches.”
The term “extraction shooter” is relatively new, and is typically used to describe a relatively slow-paced, tactical experience where players compete with one another to collect loot or accomplish objectives. Other current examples of an extraction shooter include Midwinter’s Marauders, where players contend with each other and a hostile Arctic environment; Crytek’s Hunt: Showdown, a monster-hunting game where players can steal bounties from one another; or the cult Twitch favorite Escape from Tarkov.
Unexpectedly, Marathon is planned to release not just on the PlayStation 5, but also for the PC and Xbox Series X|S, despite Bungie’s new place in the PlayStation Studios network.
Bungie also teased The Final Shape, the upcoming eighth expansion for Destiny 2, which is said to be the conclusive ending of the game’s current story arc, and marks the abrupt, slightly inexplicable reintroduction of fan-favorite character Cayde-6 (Nathan Fillion). Bungie plans a standalone briefing on The Final Shape for August.
Firewalk Studios, which Sony recently purchased from Bellevue, Wash. production company ProbablyMonsters, offered a debut trailer for its first game, a multiplayer first-person shooter called Concord.
Its director, Ryan Ellis, wrote on the official PlayStation blog that Concord is “a bringing together of peoples,” emphasizing that it’s a game made to “build connection and inspire social play” in an original science-fiction universe. Further details have yet to be disclosed.
Sony itself announced at the end of the Showcase that it plans to release a handheld streaming device later this year, which currently uses the working title of “Project Q.”
The Q features an 8-inch HD screen in addition to all of the buttons and features of the PlayStation 5’s DualSense wireless controller. It’s designed as a method by which a player can wirelessly stream games to the Project Q from their PlayStation 5, though it’ll top out at 1080p and 60 frames per second.
The announcement of Project Q can be seen as a shot across Microsoft’s bow, as at a glance, Q is made as a direct competitor to Microsoft’s efforts with its Xbox Cloud Gaming service. Depending on the effective range of Project Q, it could allow players to take their PS5 libraries with them on the road and play their games from anywhere.
Project Q also marks Sony’s reentry into the portable gaming market, which it hasn’t pursued since it discontinued the PlayStation Vita handheld console in March 2019. That, in turn, may be perceived as an attempt to more directly compete with both Nintendo and Valve, as Project Q could be seen as a rival product for both the rapidly-aging Switch and the Steam Deck.
The PlayStation Showcase ran for a little over an hour and featured the official debuts of many games that are coming to Sony’s PlayStation 5 in the next year and a half, including Spider-Man II, Dragon’s Dogma II, and Final Fantasy XVI.
Microsoft fired back at Sony shortly after the Showcase with a tweet from the official Xbox account, which subtly noted that of the games revealed at the PlayStation Showcase, 12 of the biggest are also coming to the Xbox platform.
