Marathon shows signs of life with a closed network test scheduled for later this month

Marathon lives! Well, of course it does, it would be quite shocking if PlayStation were to cancel it before it even got a chance to become Concord 2, but that’s neither here nor there. What is here, and soon to be there, is another playtest, of which sign-ups are now available. It is being dubbed a “closed technical test,” and plans to run for just a few days, between October 22nd and October 28th, but there are a few differences to be found compared to when we last saw it.

For starters, this playtest will take place across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam, and it’ll be available in both North America and Europe this time. Worth noting is that it is under NDA, so you in particular shouldn’t go blabbering about it, let some content creator desperate for views do that instead.

In terms of what will be available in the test, there’ll be three maps to play through and five runner shells to try out. A big change is that the game will now have proximity chat, and notably, a solo queue – in previous playtests you could only play in teams of three, and even if you could launch into a match solo, you’d be at a real disadvantage. On top of that there’s “re-tuned combat pacing… deeper environmental storytelling, and more.”

Whether any of that is enough to make it a good game? Hard to say until someone plays it, but even if this is only a brief overview of what’s new, it’ll need to feel quite radically different to make an impact. I’m not sure if it sounds like it’ll manage that just yet.

Heading to the blog post about the network test will take you to a form where you can apply to take part in it, which you can do so until October 16th, or from October 13th you’ll be able to do so via Steam directly (sign-ups there will run until October 26th).

It’s interesting that this playtest is under NDA, given how publicly poor the reception was earlier this year. Certainly sounds like Bungie is continuing an attempt at doing some damage control. The last update we had on the game is that it was indefinitely delayed, which is still the case, obviously not a good sign for the state of the game. Updates in the following months after the test were promised, so we’ll have to wait and see where Marathon ends up landing next year.