News for Bungie continues to be bleak, especially for Marathon, the upcoming PvP extraction shooter set in the sci-fi franchise created in the 1990s.
A few hours ago, Jason Schreier published a story on Bloomberg to reveal why Game Director Christopher Barrett was replaced earlier this year by former Valorant Game Director Joe Ziegler. According to Schreier's sources, Barrett was fired following a misconduct investigation prompted by at least eight female employees reporting inappropriate behavior from the Game Director.
The investigation verified that Barrett made advances and suggested that, thanks to his power within Bungie, he could help advance the female employees' careers. Schreier also shared a statement from Barrett:
I feel that I have always conducted myself with integrity and been respectful and supportive of my colleagues, many of whom I consider my closest friends. I never understood my communications to be unwanted and I would have never thought they could possibly have made anyone feel uncomfortable. If anyone ever felt that way about their interaction with me, I am truly sorry.
Interestingly, other Bungie employees weren't initially told of the circumstances of Barrett's departure. They were led to believe that he was on a sabbatical year, but that wasn't actually the case.
While this is just a single person leaving the Marathon team, there's more problems bubbling under the surface, at least according to insider Tom Henderson, who tweeted that the game is 'cooked' based on his info. The game was originally meant to launch in 2024, but Bungie delayed it to 2025 alongside the delay of Destiny 2: The Final Shape.
The design of Marathon is ambitious, with the developer planning to create a world of persistent zones where player actions actually matter and influence everyone else in the game. Perhaps they're having problems executing that high-level vision.
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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