Marathon art director leaves Bungie

Recently, we learned that Sony and Bungie had resolved a plagiarism dispute over Marathon with an artist. Coincidentally, the game's original art director has now left the company. 

Joseph Cross, who had a long career at Bungie spanning work across Destiny and Marathon, has left the company. Most recently, Cross had served as the art director on Marathon. As spotted by The Game Post, Cross has updated their LinkedIn profile to confirm that they are no longer working at Bungie.

Kotaku spoke with Cross after the news began spreading and learned that they left Bungie of their own accord, so there was no firing. Cross is leaving Bungie just after the company solidified the release plan for Marathon, which will now be launching in March 2026, with a $40 price tag. As plans for the final game have been locked in, the lack of art director during these final months of development should have no impact on the release.

Marathon was originally supposed to release this year but had to be delayed while the team generated new assets to avoid plagiarism issues. With this extra time, Bungie was also able to address some crucial feedback from the game's closed alpha test, adding more PvE events into the maps and adding features like proximity voice chat for better in-game communication.

KitGuru Says: Are you looking forward to Marathon? I'm still hoping for an open beta early next year so I can give it a try myself. 

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