The Case for Marathon

Marathon from Bungie is an extraction shooter that I have had my eyes on for a long time because I've been waiting for the extraction shooter genre to make its way to console. I've played Halo going all the way back to Halo: Combat Evolved, and I've played pretty much every Bungie game since then to varying degrees, with Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach, and Destiny 1 being some of my favorites.

But before we dive into Marathon itself, I think it's important to understand the legacy behind it. One thing that a lot of people on the internet don't know is that Marathon was Bungie's original IP before Halo, and it was a legendary franchise that pioneered a lot of different things in first person shooters, like the ability to control where you were looking just by pointing your mouse as well as dual wielding weapons. These were groundbreaking features at the time, and they shaped the future of the FPS genre, cementing Marathon in FPS history and leading to Bungie's acquisition by Microsoft ahead of releasing Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox.

Understanding ARC Raiders and the Extraction Shooter Landscape

Before we get into Marathon itself, I think it's important to talk about ARC Raiders first. ARC Raiders is a great game, and I really want to get that across. I have about two hundred hours logged so far, and I think it's a really well made video game, full stop. Hats off to Embark for making something really impressive by managing to truly bring the extraction shooter genre to consoles and kick the door down when it comes to the live service industry, carving out a massive space in a year when Call of Duty and Battlefield both had titles released. This came at a time when a lot of people believed that live service was a closed loop and no one could really enter that sector of the market, let alone with an extraction shooter, which is already an inherently niche genre.

My take on ARC Raiders is a little different than some people's, since I know it has a huge fan base, and rightfully so. A lot of people have to realize that, much like Fortnite, which was built to be a co-op zombie survival game that was then retrofitted and made into a battle royale, ARC was also a different game initially that was made to fit the extraction shooter genre. Embark originally built the game to be a third person PvE co-op game where you fought the ARC (the robots in the game), and people even participated in playtests where that was the case. However, leading up to launch, Embark realized that the game needed something to spice it up and really open up the sandbox.

As a result, they enabled PvP combat and pivoted hard to make it an extraction shooter. What released is what we have today: a PvEvP game which has truly taken over the market. This is an interesting thing to remember because of this pivot. There are a lot of things in ARC that still retain a lot of that third person looter and co-op experience, because you're fighting a lot of really difficult enemies. There's a strong emphasis on cooperation with other teams since it's very difficult to tackle some of the game's hardest challenges solo. Proximity chat and teaming up with other teams, hoarding loot, and a simplified UI all helped bring a more casual experience to the fundamentals of an extraction shooter.

For people who have never dipped their toe in the extraction shooter genre before, this is really valuable. A lot of people would be coming from Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Apex Legends, games that are relatively simple compared to something like an extraction shooter. And anyone who's dipped their toe in this genre knows that it's very similar to MMOs in a lot of ways. It's a very daunting experience, but the people who love this genre really love it. That's why I've been so intrigued to see both MMOs and extraction shooters come to consoles and reach a more mainstream audience.

The question has been whether something like this will have legs or if it will just stay niche, like Tarkov. As we saw with ARC Raiders, it is possible for an extraction shooter to hit the mainstream and pop off. That game grew its concurrent player count for three weeks straight, which you just do not see in the modern era. Normally, you have a launch weekend peak, and it tapers off from there. ARC has continued to be very successful, and it deserves every single bit of that success. Embark treats their players very well, they work very hard, and they've made an incredible experience for their fans.

Built from the Ground Up

When we get to Bungie making Marathon, I think that context is very important. Marathon was built from the ground up to be an extraction shooter after Bungie looked at Tarkov and asked themselves: how can we make this playable on console for people to enjoy?

Much to my delight, when I booted up the game for the first time in the full release, I was seriously impressed with what Bungie put together. The UI is complex, there is a ton of depth in build crafting, and the world is absolutely gorgeous with incredible gameplay and gunplay. Is the game perfect? No. Do I think it's better than ARC Raiders in some ways? Yes, and in some other ways, not so much. That's what I really want to get into here. Essentially, I'm going to make the case for Marathon and why I think you should play it.

The Strengths: Gunplay, Art Direction, and Atmosphere

First and foremost, as we all know, Bungie is known for making world class gunplay and first person shooter gameplay. Whether it's Marathon, Halo, or Destiny, anyone who's played their games can agree that the feel of the weapons, the sound design, and just the general design of their weapon sandbox and gunplay has always been a ten out of ten. That is simply no different in Marathon. Whether you're fighting enemies with a simple handgun, a three round burst assault rifle, or a railgun, everything feels fantastic. From the weapon sound to the weapon feel to just the recoil, all elements of gunplay feel incredible. Ten out of ten, hats off to them. If you're a fan of that, just know that it's here. It will feel good to shoot your gun, and that's good because you're going to be doing so a lot.

Another big positive for the game, in my eyes, is the art style. I am definitely partial to this aesthetic, so there's a little bit of bias there, and I even acknowledge that for some people it's going to be a turnoff. However, we live in a world where most big releases are either this hyperstylized but kind of generic looking cartoon figure style like Fortnite and Overwatch, or a much more realistic, grounded approach like Battlefield, Tarkov, and Call of Duty.

But what I really love about this visual style is how you will see a picture of this game and go, "oh yeah, I know exactly where that's from." And that's awesome. In a world where we just don't get that much differentiation between games' artistic motifs, Marathon has done an absolutely stellar job at making something really unique. Another thing to note is that in the alpha build, a lot of the colors, the lighting, and the general aesthetic and vibe of the maps were very flat. That is something that has been upgraded to an eleven out of ten in the full release. The general ambiance of the incredible vistas on a map like Outpost, or traveling through Perimeter and Dire Marsh with their reflections and fog, is incredibly atmospheric. You really feel like you're on this hostile alien planet that's out to kill you, yet at the same time, you can't really help looking around and thinking, wow, this is actually kind of gorgeous in a sick, twisted kind of way.

If it's not for you, I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you that it's actually cool and you just don't get it. It's one of those things: take it or leave it. But if you love it, I think there's a lot here for you to see and enjoy.

Understanding the Gameplay Loop and Learning Curve

The next thing I really want to get into is the general loop. The thing that's important to understand about extraction shooters is that you're in it for the long haul. You're going to start out pathetically weak, with no gear, and you're going to have a tough time. Whether it's all the gameplay systems, the different menus, or the different items, all that stuff is just going to be incredibly overwhelming. And that is kind of the point of a game like this. You're supposed to play these games for fifty, a hundred, two hundred, up to a thousand hours or more until you really get a handle on them.

There's a saying in Tarkov that your first thousand hours are really just the tutorial. Do I think Marathon is like that? No. The learning curve is definitely shorter, but it's important to establish that when we're talking about the genre. That's why I draw the comparison to an MMO. When someone who hasn't played MMOs goes and plays one for the first time, there are a ton of systems, controls, and general things to learn about the game before you really feel comfortable and get invested in what the game has to offer. Marathon, though not perfect, is very similar.

When you drop into your first match on Perimeter after the tutorial, the game tells you virtually nothing. It doesn't tell you where to go or what to do. There's no objective in each match like in a battle royale where it's "be the last team standing," or in an arena shooter where it's "score the most points to get ranked higher." Instead, it's kind of up to you to figure it out.

When you really get into extraction shooters, you start to realize that there is value in simply playing the game, which I know sounds crazy. But when you start to approach it that way and learn as you go, you start to see what Marathon is going for here. You might pick up a contract, so your goal becomes finishing that contract. And you're like, alright, that's the loop. We're just finishing contracts. That's how you play the game. But eventually, you're going to run out of contracts to do or you're going to get bored of them. So what do you do then?

Well, your gear isn't very good. So you think about which map you're going to load into based on where the gear spawns are and what you know about the map. You might think, "I'm going to do some runs to try and get some really good gear so that way I'm a little bit safer and a little bit stronger when I load into the next map." Or you might say, "actually, I don't really want to loot stuff. I want to kill people because when I fight them, they have good loot on them, and I can take it, and then I'll be stronger when I come into the next match." Or there might be some really strong PVE enemies that drop some really good loot that other players are going after, and you're like, "actually, I want to go and do that." Or there might be a really interesting area on the map you haven't explored yet, and you're like, "actually, I just want to go and explore in this match and see what happens."

That's really the secret sauce of extraction shooters. There are so many different things to do in every match that every run offers a different type of value. This isn't like ARC where you can get a general grasp of what you're supposed to do very quickly. ARC does a very good job of simplifying its onboarding process because there are basically one of three things you can do: load into a match and fight ARC, load into a match and loot stuff to bring out, or load into a match and fight other players. Marathon has just a lot more depth to these systems, and as a result, it could be much more daunting when you first load into the game.

Very similar to Destiny way back in 2014, there is a lot behind the curtain when you first play the game. So I encourage you, if this is your first extraction shooter, to really give the game a chance and try to learn everything that it's teaching you. That will show you if you actually like the genre or if you're more of a fan of something like ARC Raiders, which is a much more simplified version of what this game is trying to provide.

Where Marathon Falls Short

Now I want to pivot into the things that I think could use a lot of work. First and foremost, this game was marketed as a stronger PvP experience than something like ARC. There is PvP in ARC, but because of its matchmaking systems, if you don't want to do PvP, it inherently becomes absent from the gameplay loop. You basically will be queued with people who will never shoot at you, and so you do not have to PvP at all. In Marathon, that just isn't the case. It's pretty much shoot on sight. The AI enemies are just as much of a problem as other actual players. This is a world that is actively trying to prevent you from extracting. The game wants to kill you.

However, for my personal taste, there can be a surprising lack of PvP. I've put in about thirty five hours between the launch of the game and the server slam, and even when I'm actively seeking PvP out in a match, it can be relatively difficult to find teams. Now I don't think this needs a lot of fixing or a lot of tuning, but adding one or two or even three more teams to the bigger maps would help a ton. Basically, I wish the game would do more to encourage people to fight in that PvEvP sandbox and force them to realize that other players are going to want to try to kill them, so they will need to fight back.

The second thing I've seen a lot of people complaining about is the UI, even going so far as to say it's terrible. I don't think it's terrible. I think it's very complex, and there are a lot of menus that take a lot of time to get used to. But they provide you the information you need, and I actually think they're laid out in a way that is relatively easy to understand. However, I do think there are several elements of the UI that could use a lot of tuning.

Number one: when you scroll over an item in your backpack and you want to swap it with another item, it doesn't compare the two items. There's no pop up or tooltip that tells you what item you currently have equipped and what you want to replace it with. And so it's very hard to judge whether you actually want to swap them. A lot of items have very similar icons or naming conventions, and that can make it really difficult to keep track of specifically what a thing does. I think clearing that up and making it easier to understand would be great.

There are some other clunky things within the UI as well. For instance, you have to ready up and then confirm you want to deploy every match. I found myself several times readying up and then just accidentally sitting there because I forgot to confirm. Another gripe I had was how long it took me to figure out why I had a customization option that didn't seem to exist. Getting that cleared up would be great. Basic things like that, I think, could make the UI much more functional and much quicker to navigate, especially in raid.

So Is Marathon Worth Your Time?

Ultimately, Marathon is a super interesting game, and I think we're going to learn a lot about extraction shooters in the mainstream from it. Personally, I would give it about an eight out of ten right now. All of the issues I mentioned are fairly easy to fix, and we haven't even received all the endgame content yet. The patch notes that came out today actually did a really great job of already starting to address community issues, which gives me a lot of hope that Bungie is actually going to listen to their audience and make changes quickly.

What I find most interesting is whether a hardcore extraction shooter can have legs in the market, the same way that Fortnite was really popular but we didn't really know that battle royales were going to be the next big thing until Apex came out and everybody was like, "Apex is super fun too." And then Call of Duty came out with Warzone and people were like, "wait, Warzone is really fun too." And then every game started making their own battle royale. I think we're going to see a lot of the same thing if Marathon is successful. If Marathon struggles to gain an audience, I do think we really won't see many extraction shooters come to console. But if it does find an audience, I could see it helping to popularize the genre in a real way.

Do I think Marathon is a perfect game? Not even close. Do I think it's a really well crafted, strong multiplayer shooter that more FPS fans should try, especially if they've liked Bungie's other games in the past? One hundred percent. I think forty dollars is a very fair price tag, and it especially helps to keep cheaters out, which is super important in the modern day. And yes, it does have a steep learning curve that may be a turnoff to some people. But as someone who's now starting to crest that learning curve and actually get into the real meat of the game, I can confidently say there's a lot here. If people give it a genuine chance, they will be pleasantly surprised by what Bungie has crafted for them.