‘Marathon’ recruits former ‘Halo Infinite’ lead multiplayer designer

17 July, 2023

Sci-fi shooter Marathon has welcomed multiplayer designer Andrew Witts to Bungie to support the development of its new PC and PlayStation 5 game.

Announced through Twitter, Witts is now the gameplay design director for Marathon. “Everyone has been so welcoming and kind. I am thrilled to work with this brilliant and incredibly talented team,” he said of his new employer.

Accruing over a decade of experience across games of differing scales, Witts was one of the designers on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, spending two years with Ubisoft there. Then, he became a senior game designer for first-person shooter LawBreakers, and after that, he took on the role of combat design lead at ArenaNet.

Between 2019 and 2022, Witts was the lead multiplayer modes and system designer for Halo Infinite. His most recent stint was with Epic Games as a lead gameplay designer on Fortnite.

Marathon is intended as a tribute to the original games from the ’90s, being both “something that certainly belongs in the same universe and that feels like a Bungie game,” said game director Christopher Barrett on its reveal.

“The original Marathon games revealed story moments through terminals, all in text. But now we have so many more ways to immerse players in this world, both in and out of game. We’ll be carrying that through in the design of this game,” he continued.

Nevertheless, Bungie clarified that the game is still in the very early stages of its development and that the team is going to go quiet for now. “The next time you hear from us about Marathon, we’ll be able to show you the gameplay and will be much closer to launch,” said general manager Scott Taylor.

In other gaming news, psychiatrists have determined that the teenager who is said to be responsible for hacking Rockstar Games to leak Grand Theft Auto 6 footage is not fit to stand trial.

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