Bungie’s radiant cyborg feline hints at an upcoming Marathon reveal trailer

Bungie have released a trailer for a trailer for extraction shooter Marathon. Last week the studio teased the possibility of an announcement with some cryptic tweets. The alien code was garbled but the message was clear: some substantial news about the upcoming FPS would likely be shared soon. We’ve still not heard that news, really. But now we at least know when it’s coming, thanks to the teasey video of an off-screen gunfight featuring a pink cyborg cat. It is a visual missive for impatient fans: sit down and wait until this weekend.

A more thorough “gameplay reveal” will happen on Sat April 12th, at 6pm BST (that’s 10am PDT for US folk), according to the text splashed on-screen at the end of this short video.

No idea what the cat is all about. Is this a cyber-critter who follows you about in-battle looking for scraps, or is it just a cute marketing mascot to earn easy love from animal lovers? Will you be able to pet this cat, or do you use it as a grenade? We’ll know more this Saturday.

Bungie have been relatively quiet about Marathon since its reveal in 2023. We know it’s an extraction shooter with a PvP focus, and that it’ll be set in the same universe as the Marathon games of the 1990s. But it’s not a direct sequel or remake in the traditional sense. Fights will take place on the planet of Tau Ceti IV, and judging by the glitchy aesthetic, the rampant AI nemeses of the originals will doubtlessly come into play somehow. If you’re deeply curious about the lore and background, the original Marathon Trilogy is free on Steam.

The development of nu-Marathon has been troubled. Director Joe Ziegler reassured fans last October that work on the game was ongoing, despite mass layoffs at the studio and the ousting of the game’s previous director, Christopher Barrett, for allegations of misconduct (a decision Barrett has sued Sony over). Bungie undoubtedly have stacks of faithful fans for whom Destiny 2 has offered years of shooty distraction, but they’re now facing a much more difficult-to-crack live service environment, and a publisher that has no qualms eating their young. In other words, the pressure is on for Marathon to be something more interesting than just another extraction shooter.