Bungie’s NewMarathonGame Has an Amazing Short Film

After a decadefocusing solelyon its on-going shared world shooterDestiny , Bungie is reviving its honest-to-god sci - fi gun for hire seriesMarathon . As part of the game’sofficial unveilingon Saturday , the developer released a cinematic short that may be one of the coolest video recording of 2025 .

Written and directed by Spanish animator Alberto Mielgo — best known forLove , Death , & Robotsand art director forSpider - Man : Into the Spider - Verse — the eight - minute video lays out the intriguing , violent , and more than a little unsettling sci - fi domain of this newMarathon . As it opens , something … weird happens on the planet Tau Ceti IV . Some colonists are crushed by artificial satellite rubble from a meteor cascade , others kick the bucket where they endure in grisly manner . Even creepy is that we see these death sweep across several decades , from 2794 to 2812 and 2827 . We then jump ahead to 2893 , where cybernetic beings — former man who have car bodies crafted by cybernetic silkworms — are looting the colony for anything they can get their hands on to betray to various camarilla still stationed on the major planet .

This 2nd part of the cinematic , which sport narration fromFinal Fantasy XVI’sBen Starr , is meant to show youMarathon’sgameplay cringle . Since this is a multiplayer extraction shooter , histrion will take on the purpose of cybernetic mercenaries call Runners to steal information , research , and the corresponding for Tau Ceti ’s various factions , and take each other ( or the satellite ’s wildlife or protection bot ) to get loot and escape safely . But the master point of this cinematic is take you into Bungie ’s new sci - fi world and offer glimpses of what you ’ll see as you shoot each other into combat . Vibes and atmosphere have always been one of Bungie ’s strong suits , and what ’s really interesting about this short is seeing moon-curser like Glitch ( Erica Lindbeck ) and Void ( Elias Toufexis ) be cognizant that something about Tau Ceti and their being there iswrong , but unable to full voice why . Whatever ’s draw them there has its hooks in them deep , and not even getting shoot to bits will keep them from retain on after they ’ve been rebuilt .

Marathon Reveal

© Bungie

Fancy cinematics are nothing new for games at this point in the spiritualist ’s aliveness . But for Bungie , Marathonfeels like a massive step forward from what the studio apartment ’s previously done withHaloandDestiny . The plot ’s aesthetic is pretty striking and distinct from anything seen in major sci - fi game in quite some time . As frigid as everything await — this is , after all , a world stimulate by its inhabitants cryptically vanishing , peradventure because of somethingroaming the hallways — there ’s a vibrancy to the coloring that do n’t clash as much as you ’d think . It ’s also just shot differently than any Bungie cutscene to date ; the television camera being so close to the Runners bring home the bacon intimatcy they ’re not getting ( or snub ) from each other and progress to the scenes where they conk out hit that much hard .

For many , this short will be enough to betray them onMarathonalone , and it ’s potential Sony design to use snippets of it to promote the plot on TV . For others , the curt has done everything right in terms of get them hook … but it ’s a strictly multiplayer game with no single - role player offer to address of . That ’s a real shame , since at their good , Bungie ’s story campaigns were memorable and have stayed with players for years . It ’s easy to imagine this being so absorbing if we were able-bodied to just be on Tau Ceti and investigate its secrets in an engaging narrative with pixilated gunplay andsome sweet euphony . Ah , well — for the multiplayer heads , Marathonwill run to PlayStation 5 , Xbox Series X|S , and PC on September 23 .

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