Some players are worried that Marathon's prospects will determine the level of ongoing support for the Destiny series. In response, Bungie's Head of Product, Josh Dean, stated that players should only pay for the games they truly enjoy.
In a lengthy blog post, Dean discussed his vision for a "new long-term version of Destiny" and the "Destiny 'Legacy'" project, stating at the time: "We all believe that nothing would help us move smoothly into the future more than Marathon growing quickly and achieving sustainable long-term operations."
After these statements regarding business planning, development milestones, and project progress were released, some readers interpreted them to mean that the success of Destiny 2's operations depends entirely on Marathon's performance. Admittedly, the more successful Marathon is, the more stable Bungie's financial situation will be, but Dean emphasized in multiple tweets: "Destiny's roadmap is absolutely not contingent on the success or failure of Marathon."
Regarding comments about Marathon, he said: "I know people misunderstood my meaning, and that's on me. Play whatever you enjoy, regardless of the title. I just hope to build stronger connections with the entire player community and successfully achieve the goals for both product lines."
He added in another reply: "As we build the future, we simply want to serve players who like both IPs, or just one of them. We will absolutely not require players to support Game B to get content for Game A; that is not how our planning works. I personally believe that if the entire Bungie community can encourage and respect each other, it will become a force driving future development."
Two other replies were even more straightforward. Dean stated, "Don't treat buying Marathon as a donation, and don't make purchases with ulterior motives. It's our job to impress you with quality work."
He reiterated: "Just buy and play the games of ours that you find interesting and exciting. We will handle the future of Destiny ourselves."
Marathon's Game Director, Joe Ziegler, recently left the company, marking another instance in Bungie's series of high-level personnel changes. He had previously stated that Marathon never intended to replace Destiny 2, and that the player bases for the two games likely have little overlap. Now, to add an attractive PvE mode, Bungie is actively incorporating more design elements from the Destiny series into Marathon.
This September, Bungie admitted that Marathon's "player count did not meet expectations." The active player base has shrunk significantly since launch: the peak concurrent players on Steam once reached 88,000, but now the daily average is only two to three thousand. While any live-service game sees a drop in players after launch, Marathon's situation is clearly difficult, remaining sluggish for months with seasonal updates failing to reignite player enthusiasm.
The vicious cycle of player churn mirrors the situation in Destiny 2's PvP mode: as newcomers and casual players leave, matches become increasingly difficult, queue times grow longer, and hardcore veterans dominate new players, making it harder for newcomers to join and progress steadily. Marathon's inherently hardcore design philosophy has already deterred many, and this vicious cycle only exacerbates the problem. But the issues go beyond this; for example, after mandatory seasonal resets, there isn't enough compelling motivation for players to re-grind seasonal progress, which is a deeper underlying issue.