There’s some interesting new rumors surrounding Bungie’s Marathon, and a possible connection to Destiny 2.

As shared on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit by user TheRealGregTheDreg, dataminers found evidence of pre-order cosmetics on Marathon’s Steam page. In the SteamDB Discord, user BungieLeaks forwarded this post:
“looking at the linked apps these new packages have, these 2 new package seems to be 2 (extra) edition the game will sell since 3569720 & 3569730 are coming with every edition of the game, they could be a preorder bonus dlc
3569760 & 3569740 are docs for the extra+ & extra++ editions
3569750 is a dlc for the extra++ edition
2978290 is a dlc for destiny 2 that’s coming with every edition
(1089507 is the base edition, 1259532 is the extra+ edition, 1259535 is the extra++ edition)
up to you to guess if setting game editions to be sold is one of the last thing they would be doing (i would assume it is, indeed, one of the last step)
(& up to you to guess if the dlc they just made are already ready or if they still need to make the content in them since these dlc were just made yesterday)”
Since this information was found in datamining, it may not come from an anonymous source, but it may not be reliable in time. If sometimes game companies file patents and trademarks they don’t end up using, datamined data can be on even shakier ground. The developer or publisher can always change their mind on what they add to their games, and this is even more salient for a game that’s clearly far from getting released.
If there’s anything here that’s anywhere useful, it would be the idea that Bungie would be bringing crossover DLC from Marathon to Destiny 2. That indicates their hope that there will be sufficient overlap between their fans that they would want to play both games.
And we note that this data suggests there will be two tiers of special editions for Marathon, but that isn’t particularly unique or interesting. We suppose that Bungie will simply have to assume the best when they planned out this game release, even if they aren’t sure if their extraction shooter version of Marathon even has an audience.
The game’s director, Joe Ziegler, promised there would be public playtests and other events for gamers to help in making Marathon last year. Jeff Grubb suggested Bungie is planning a dedicated Marathon event to show the game directly to fans, instead of being part of a State of Play presentation. Whatever the case, we’re still waiting for Bungie to make their case for Marathon, and to give gamers the opportunity to make it the kind of extraction shooter they want to play.