Bungie denies Marathon and Destiny merger rumour

Bungie is not merging Marathon and Destiny into a single franchise.

Marathon creative director Julia Nardin rejected the claim outright, calling it fake in a post on X on 16 September 2026. She said the two games share Bungie DNA but stand as independent entities, like siblings, according to Eurogamer.

The denial answers a wide-ranging leak that started on 4Chan and was later pulled together on Reddit. That post claimed Bungie was testing the waters for a merger, with Marathon recast as the start of humanity's Golden Age, the prosperous era that sits at the beginning of Destiny lore.

It did not stop there. The leak claimed multiple former Destiny 2 developers had been rehired for Marathon, and that veterans were folding ideas once planned for cancelled Destiny expansions and a sequel into the newer game.

It also claimed Marathon would borrow Destiny's reputation and faction systems, systems that track player standing with in-game groups, and add a social space where players can gather outside missions. Destiny 2 players who finished certain Triumphs, the game's long checklist of challenges, in the final update would get in-game rewards in Marathon, the post said. It also said Marathon would go free-to-play in December.

One detail drew particular attention. The leak named Investigations as Marathon's coming permanent PvE mode, player-versus-environment, meaning cooperative play against computer-controlled enemies rather than other players. It described it as a blend of Monster Hunter and Salmon Run, the wave-based cooperative mode from Splatoon.

The chatter follows a difficult stretch for Bungie. The studio shipped its final major Destiny 2 update in June 2026 after announcing all development on the game had ceased, with no further expansions planned and no Destiny 3 in development. That same month it laid off hundreds of workers.

Marathon, a science-fiction extraction shooter where players risk gear on high-stakes runs, sold an estimated 1.2 million copies at launch. Its daily peak on Steam, the PC storefront, has since fallen to under 3,000 concurrent players at the same time, its lowest point since launch.

Bungie has also delayed Marathon's next major update from 22 September 2026 to 8 December 2026, putting the focus on PvE and stepping away from seasonal content, the timed batches of stories and rewards, according to IGN.

For players, this means two things at once. No merger is planned. But Marathon is changing shape. The December update will show how far that pivot goes. Nardin's message is that Destiny's past will not decide it.