Sony Still Plans To Release Fairgame$ And Marathon, The Latter For This Financial Year

Sony has confirmed that they still plan to release both Marathon and Fairgame$, with Marathon slated for this financial year.

As shared by Careless_Main3 in the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit, Sony shared a presentation for a recent investor meeting. In this slide we’ve screencapped below, we clearly see that Marathon is coming this financial year (before April 1, 2026), and Fairgame$ is labeled as ‘upcoming.’

CEO for PlayStation’s Studio Business Group Hermen Hulst shared more insight about what Sony is doing right now when it comes to Marathon. Hulst joined PlayStation President and CEO Hideaki Nishino and their SVP of Finance & Corporate Development Lynn Azar in a Fireside Chat, aka a Q&A, with their investors. Hulst said this:

For Marathon, it’s our goal to release a very bold, very innovative and deeply engaging title. It’s gonna be the first new Bungie title in over a decade, so we’re really excited for that release. We’re monitoring, we’re going through the test cycles, we’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle that the team has just gone through. We’re taking all the lessons learned. We’re using the capabilities that we’ve built in analytics and user testing to understand how audiences are engaging with the title.

You know, some of that feedback, frankly, has been varied, but it’s super useful. That’s why we do this testing. The constant testing and the constant revalidation of assumptions we just talked about. To me, it’s just so valuable to iterate and to constantly improve the title. So when launch comes, we’re going to give the title the optimal chance of success.

This cycle of test, of iterate, test again; that is such a key component of the live service success, both leading up to launch, but also throughout the life of the game. And we’re committed to continuing to leverage our learnings to maximize engagement and player satisfaction throughout the life cycle of the title.

While we’re sure many fans would have a lot to say about these statements, we’ll focus on the elephant in the room. Marathon is still dealing with the fallout of a plagiarism controversy. Sony also has a recent trailer showing that Marathon has a release date of September 23, 2025. Oddly enough, Hulst did not mention either Marathon’s plagiarism controversy or the given release date.

If we would be charitable towards Hulst and PlayStation leadership, they may be legally constrained in some way in talking about the plagiarism allegations, and that may mean they’re not sure if they’ll have to change some plans in the future. They may not even be sure if they can just cancel the game outright, but based on Hulst’s tenor, they may sincerely believe they can still make Marathon a hit. If were were to be less charitable, it is possible that the game’s issues with plagiarism haven’t even reached Sony’s management yet.

As best as we can tell, Fairgame$ did not come up in this Fireside Chat. That does mean fans remain concerned about the fate of that title with no statement from Sony. Last month, Jade Raymond left Haven Studios, the developer working on Fairgame$. Rumors then spread afterward that the game was still receiving poor feedback from playtests.

It also seems possible that Sony has even more unannounced live service games, new ones to replace the initial batch that was proposed under former PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan. Sony seems certain they can just keep improving their live service games to make them successful, and they do seem to consider MLB: The Show and Destiny 2 as successful live service titles alongside Helldivers 2. We do know of one such game that isn’t officially announced yet, but has been confirmed; Gummy Bears, developed by TeamLFG.

So as much as it may beggar belief, Sony seems very much not only determined to be successful in live service. They think they’re already a successful live service publisher, and they want to expand in this genre even if it means taking huge risks. We can probably expect their live service push to continue through the launch of the PlayStation 6.