24-year Bungie veteran Christopher Barrett revealed in a LinkedIn update that his $200 million lawsuit against Bungie and Sony has now been resolved. Barrett, who was the Art Director on Destiny, then one of the Game Directors for Destiny 2 and the original Game Director on Marathon, left in 2024 among allegations of sexual misconduct. However, he fought back in court, alleging that Bungie and Sony sought to make him a scapegoat for their business failures while also avoiding payment of the "tens of millions of dollars" he was owed.
In the update, it sounds like Barrett is victorious. He will get his name back in the Marathon credits, but he also heavily hinted that he got a payout, too, though we don't know how much:
I am pleased to share that Sony, Bungie, and I have reached an agreement to resolve the lawsuit. The outcome is one I am very satisfied with, and I am grateful to everyone who stood by me. Closing this chapter allows me to focus my attention on what's next in my gaming journey, and I look forward to what lies ahead.
Barrett also shared a joint official statement from all parties:
The litigation between Sony Interactive Entertainment, Bungie, and Christopher Barrett has been settled. For 25 years, Mr. Barrett contributed to some of Bungie’s most successful games. Mr. Barrett was the original Game Director for Marathon, and his name has been added to the game’s credits to reflect that.
Regardless of what happened at the studio, fans have long been curious about Barrett's original vision for Marathon. From the little he shared after exiting Bungie, the game was actually inspired by the MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot and would have been a tense living world experience filled with co-op player stories and the potential danger of other players, modeled on Dark Age of Camelot's Realm-versus-Realm PvP zones where players from different factions could clash while battling PvE enemies. Marathon also allegedly featured:
- Persistent servers players could spawn onto or extract from at any time, rather than timed raid sessions
- A player-driven "living world" featuring emergent, dynamic events
- Strong emphasis on unique, emergent player stories and experiences
- Survival mechanics like broken limbs or leaking gas tanks to force creative, on-the-fly adaptation
- Deep integration of classic Marathon lore to build "a compelling, deep, interesting world"
- Fully customizable player characters with a "no heroes" philosophy, avoiding fixed hero-shooter archetypes
- Win conditions that reward playstyles beyond pure "PvP twitch dominance," giving non-combat approaches a path to success
Indeed, this aligns with the design goals Barrett shared back in 2023: a game world where players' actions meaningfully affect other players. Unfortunately, that's not the Marathon we got, and while fairly acclaimed by critics and fans, the game has largely failed to attract a sizable audience. In other Bungie news, the studio just had to lay off a couple of hundred employees following the closure of Destiny 2.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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