Responses by Kurppa Hosk.

Background: We’ve been in a long-term partnership with AAA game studio Bungie as its lead creative agency in launching Marathon. Having seen massive success with titles like Halo and Destiny, Bungie has expanded its roster to include Marathon, an IP originally launched in 1994 as a trilogy of games but has now been reimagined as a live-service, survival-extraction first person shooter game where players battle each other in a hostile environment. Our goal was to excite existing Bungie fans while welcoming new players into the community and franchise.

Design thinking: In live‑service games like Marathon, brand and product are inseparable. We were tasked with developing a marketing strategy that would resonate culturally, evolve with the product and its audience, and build upon a deep understanding of the in-game universe to establish the foundations of a long-term brand dialogue with players. As our partnership with Bungie kicked off years before the actual game launch, we rooted our strategy in “designing the desire to play,” meaning that we needed to drive brand affinity and build excitement about Marathon’s world long before it went live.

Central to the campaign was a brand-led product marketing approach, honoring the legacy of the original IP while actively inviting new audiences in. We developed a deliberate, fan‑centered strategy to build affinity within key audiences. We wanted to empower fans and creators to champion the brand, its lore and its evolving identity in ways that felt authentic and earned.

The launch campaign kicked off with a high‑impact gameplay reveal in April 2025, amplified by a series of experiential and interactive activations as part of an ambitious alternate reality game (ARG). An experience inspired by the in‑game narrative, the ARG used the real world as a storytelling platform, letting fans unlock exclusive marketing content for the broader community in real time.

To continue fueling hype, we also delivered always-on social content and paid advertising spearheaded by aspirational in-game capture, groundbreaking use of community platforms, innovative merchandise and creator partnerships. The approach was uniquely holistic and audience-informed, from first reveal to global launch. Now, as the game heads into its first season, we’re strengthening the player relationship and bolstering the community with another ARG, one that blends in-game actions with real world experiences.

Challenges: Gaming is a dynamic industry where the market changes rapidly and often without warning. To ensure a successful plan, it’s critical to build plans while maintaining flexibility and reactivity to marketplace and community feedback. In this industry where brand and product are inseparable, getting insights means constantly revisiting the marketing strategy at its core and iterating in lockstep as the development of the game progresses.

The marketing and content had to develop in line with the product evolution and remain calibrated against player expectations, which meant being incredibly agile and fast in our creative thinking and execution. We were rarely able to fully realize pre-laid plans; instead, we had to iterate on ideas as we built the assets. Despite the natural challenges of continuously reinventing ways of working mid-process, this approach undoubtedly strengthened the results.

Favorite details: Firstly, the truly immersive and integrated nature of the output. Modern marketing—especially within the gaming industry—requires cultural fluency; speed; and the ability to orchestrate product, brand, tech and community as one living ecosystem.

We were proud to work with Bungie from the early stages of creative expression and worldbuilding—all the way through to the final phases of the marketing campaign and community engagement. It gave us a deep understanding of the brand and its universe, and it enabled every element of our output to be interlinked and engaging for audiences. The best tangible examples of this were the ARGs that we developed: platform agnostic interactive marketing became the storytelling for the game, enticing players into the creative fantasy before the game was even available.

The understanding began with us helping to develop the visual game world with Bungie. Graphic design is truly unique to the game in a way that is totally new for the industry. From the in-game factions that we treated as modern brands to the highly stylized fidelity and worldbuilding graphics and iconography, it was a huge rush to enter Tau Ceti and see a world that is brought to life by design elements that we have created or inspired.

Another highlight was the creation of a sustained culture-building machine around Marathon through social content spearheaded by game capture combined with groundbreaking platform innovations on Discord. The most successful live-service games create culture, and that culture, in turn, becomes part of future seasons of the game. This creates a virtuous circle where real-world moments feed back into the product.

Overall, we’re really proud of Marathon’s comeback story. From the choppy reception of the alpha version and negative social sentiment transforming into a successful server slam and launch with positive reviews from press and fans alike—the turnaround has been incredibly satisfying.

New lessons: There are too many things to name, so we’ve narrowed it down to seven.

• How to manufacture the “2x Drinkable Cheeseburger” from Marathon in four weeks, and how to drink it with a friend.
• How to drive a robot via Twitch commands.
• How to make a 26.2-hour livestream interesting.
• How to manufacture, pack and ship 1,500 loot boxes to content creators.
• How to get 10,000 fans to complete a puzzle at the same time.
• How much the internet loves a pink cat.
• How to handle a hand cannon without blowing a hole in the wall.

Specific project demands: The creative ambition of the Bungie team made this project an absolute joy to work on. The team was never afraid to push the boundaries of what is possible to foster happiness and belief within their community—and beyond. They gave us free rein to bring the game to life in brave and novel ways that we believe really shifted the dial for the community.

Our ambition did end up being a double-edged sword at times though, and the vast scope we set for ourselves at times probably made life harder than it needed to be. We often joked about making some cuts to the go-to-market strategy, but we never did!

kurppahosk.com