Surprisingly.... Marathon is actually a good game

This game got a lot of weird hate when it’s one of the better extraction shooters in the market. Well polished and it’s a nice middle ground between casual and hardcore.

I was a little worried that there would be balancing issues with all the different shells and their abilities but that hasn’t been an issue at all.

Whats the pace like? I heard early reviews slower than arc

Definitely more forgiving than Arc. I've been enjoying it!

I played the beta and didn’t like it because it seemed overwhelming but thought the art style was awesome.

After watching some streamers playing it I figured I’d give it another try for less than 2 hours on steam so I could return it

Got hooked on it. It’s basically destiny as an extraction shooter

I’m not giving any more money to bungie

Yes it’s like a mix of Destiny PvP and Apex Legends. Can see a bit of Gambit, Trials, and there’s Apex-like abilities all over. Thief looks like a Pathfinder/Crypto/Loba hybrid.

As for pace, it’s a pretty standard experience. AI will roll you if your gear is bad or if you try to face tank them all. Raids are 25mins.

Solos is a bit slower since it’s just you vs other rats. Trios has more pvp action with other teams and Rooks that spawn in.

Rook is similar to the scav from Tarkov. You’ll see them mid-late raid only in trios. One of the best tools to learn the maps and find routes you like.

I've accepted that destiny 2 died with final shape. Go ahead and assume marathon will carry the torch to destiny 3. And destiny 3 only happens if marathon is successful.

I agree. The game is super solid. They really need to drop some more content though ASAP if they want to retain the momentum

i want to like it. i like bungies take on gun play and combat in all their previous titles. Big destiny 1 fan.

i just cant get past the aesthetic. its like cyberpunk drank a bunch of alcohol, ate an entire birthday cake with sprinkles, and puked all over. Gives me a headache just looking at it.

No need to leave it open ended, Bungie’s cooked

The Steam numbers aren’t anything indicative of a success. The one thing it has going for it is the first 2 weeks player base hasn’t cratered - but that’s only because the launch numbers were so mid and there were so many on the sidelines waiting to gauge launch perception that the only ones buying / playing are the committed ones. By now we’d see signs of player sentiment shifting if it were a great game with lasting appeal. That’s not happening. Next week it should be under 50k concurrent on Steam. For good. Big yikes

These things buried hype before it released
- Another extraction shooter
- Live service fatigue
- Nothing differentiating to speak of
- Announcement to release was too long and with poor early gameplay looks
- Bungie distrust + Destiny 2 player betrayal
- The test gameplay was trash
- The marketing is objectively terrible
- “Don’t release your reviews until we tell you to”

These things (some a function of the genre) make resurrection impossible to the broader audience they needed to buy it
- Onboarding is nonexistent
- Solo players are too punished too steeply
- Death is too punishing and rewards offered are not enough to overcome fear of it
- No character identity
- The UI is one of the worst in history and the fact that it got released like this is a testament to how clueless the dev team is
- There’s zero narrative behind all that “lore” (bonus huge disrespect to the Marathon IP)
- Battle passes and monetization are inevitable

The above is the perfect recipe for population funnel collapse that leaves only a decreasing number of sweaty players as the player base. Then again, it can’t really be a collapse if it never started from somewhere to begin with

It’s not a terrible game. It just came years late and doesn’t offer anything special to the overwhelming majority of people interested the genre to justify displacing their existing preferences that also don’t cost money

Bungie can rest easy knowing history won’t mock it like Concord. Unfortunately history just won’t remember it all