Marathon detailed by Bungie in ViDoc video after fans solve ARG puzzle

Bungie’s ViDoc has been released, revealing a few more details about the mysterious “Extraction Shooter” Marathon after a puzzle hidden in the game’s teaser trailer was solved by the Destiny community in a matter of hours.

Adding to the trailer, website, and PlayStation Blog interview revealed as part of Wednesday’s PlayStation Showcase, the ViDoc features members of the MarathonDevelopment team discussing the game and some unreleased concept art.

Marathon will be a player-versus-player, team-based extraction shooter in which squads of cybernetic Runners compete to retrieve mysterious artifacts, implants, and weapons from a hostile environment on Tau Ceti IV. They will have the ability to modify their Runners in a number of different ways.

There’ll be a narrative, divided into seasons, that will be furthered by the actions of players in persistent gameplay zones. In the video, game director Christopher Barrett gives the example of one crew being the first to find an alien key that opens up the next zone, They’re memorialized for the feat in the game — and they have to figure out how to unlock that zone for other players.

Artifact pieces will combine into bigger and more powerful artifacts, so there’ll be a continuous risk/reward balance in choosing to stay longer and risk one last battle to try to improve your haul.

Bungie will use dedicated servers to provide fairness and integrity to the game. Marathon. There’ll also be fog of war implemented in the game. “Without those elements, none of this matters,” said general manager Scott Taylor.

Marathon Bungie is about to start internal alpha tests. Taylor said that now the game is revealed, the development team will go dark “for an extended period.” When it resurfaces, the game will be much closer to launch, and the studio will be ready to share gameplay.

ViDocs were unlocked within a short time after Bungie players noticed a QR code hidden in the teaser trailer and scanned it to reveal an in-universe website, sekiguchigenetics.jp.

The team, made up of Destiny players, solved the puzzle. Destiny 2 streamer Skarrow9. If you’re interested in how it all went down, Skarrow9 has posted a video about how they solved the puzzle to YouTube.