"It's been a pleasure seeing all the stories you've created"

Image credit: Bungie

Another regular day in Marathon Land. Following on from mass layoffs at Bungie after the final major update for Destiny 2, and ahead of next week's mid-season 2 Marathon patch, the extraction shooter's game director Joe Ziegler has announced that he's left the studio, with Del Chafe III taking over his role. Chafe, up until this point, has served as Marathon's assistant game director.

"Hey everyone I've got a bit of an announcement to make. Today, Friday 7/17, will be my last day at Bungie and I'll be passing the torch of Game Director to the very capable and amazing hands of Del Chafe III, who will guide the game forward alongside the Creative Director Julia Nardin," reads the statement. "Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future. I'm proud of them and I'm excited to see them helm the future of this crazy little world we've created together."

Ziegler doesn't appear to be leaving without just cause however, as he noted that he'll be "heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon." And, potentially to assuage any concerns over a game that took a rocky path to get where it is, Ziegler also said that, "The mission will continue in new and surprising ways so stay tuned for what this team has in store for you! It's been a pleasure seeing all the stories you've created, all the clever ways you've found ways to murder robots and one another."

All of this obviously marks a lot of changes at Bungie in a short period of time, not to mention putting a giant question mark above Marathon. The studio is essentially putting all of its eggs into the extraction shooter, and it's still pretty unclear if that will ever pay off. Next week's mid-season update will add in the game's first proper PvE mode (for a while, anyway), so perhaps when a full version of that arrives things might start turning around.