I’m gonna keep it real here, I was as prepared to hate on Marathon as just about anyone else, but after playing it for myself during the Marathon Server Slam last week, I don’t think it deserves it. This doesn’t mean that I like the game or the business practices Bungie seems to want to inject into it, but I just don’t think it’s “Concord 3” or “Highguard 2” as so many of its critics are trying to portray it. No Marathon isn’t awful, but neither is it great. In actuality, it’s just okay. It’s really too bad, as Bungie could have had something really special here had it done, well, anything other than an extraction shooter.

I’m not going to mince words here. Marathon has a lot going for it. Tau Ceti IV and the UESC Marathon are intriguing and mysterious. The art style, in my opinion, pops and further adds to the setting’s alien-ness and overall feeling of unreality. It’s got lore that I would love to really dig into; lore which is further enhanced by its otherworldly sound design, music and trance-like cutscenes and loading screens. Credit where it’s due, this is a very interesting setting they’ve got here. Were this a single-player game or purely co-op driven campaign, I’d be all over Marathon. But that’s not what this game is.

Marathon is a PvP(vE) extraction shooter, with everything balanced around PvP and gear acquisition. The entire game is built around exploring one of its 3 (at launch) giant maps, collecting whatever upgrades you can get your hands on and getting out alive with it. All the while, you have to be on constant alert for both enemy player squads and very tough NPC enemies. Engagements with NPCs are manageable with teamwork, but they often attract the attention of other players, who will always wait for the perfect opportunity to get the jump on you.

If you’re jumped, you’re almost certainly going to lose due to low Time-To-Kill, so your best play is to avoid conflict as much as possible. Some runs will be successful. Others will end after two minutes if you’re unfortunate enough to be found by another team. All the while you’re working to complete contracts given by Marathon’s various factions in order to unlock permanent upgrades for your Runner frames (robotic bodies for you to pilot). 

This is more or less all extraction shooters, though, not just Marathon. I just point it out because this is something that just doesn’t sound like it’d be widely popular even if done well, and it has proven not to be for the most part. The biggest game in the genre, Escape From Tarkov, is still very much a niche title, and even the more mainstream Arc Raiders only has wider appeal because it watered down the genre’s more hardcore aspects.

While Marathon does have some meta progression in terms of unlockable passive upgrades, it’s still more hardcore than Arc Raiders. You have to be locked in if you want to make it out with anything good, and even then you’re only going to get to keep whatever you find for a couple of months before it gets wiped. Marathon has gameplay and UI issues to work out, of course, but I still think its biggest hurdle is the very genre it belongs too.

See, due to the requirements of extraction shooters, there’s very little opportunity (or point) in exploring these maps. Even as the solo Rook frame, you can’t really enjoy it since you’re weaker, have less time and still have to watch out for enemy players. You can’t just take the world in as you must always be scanning for threats and lootable objects. In short, the intriguing world and its lore are largely going to waste here due to the game’s very nature.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t very good at Marathon. I found it hard to avoid NPC patrols and was only able to execute a couple of good ambushes on enemy teams. I also had trouble telling what each item was and whether it was actually valuable. But mostly I really wanted to explore. I couldn’t, of course, because I had to focus on not getting killed, but still. The game, otherwise, was just okay. Shooting was fine. Movement was fine. The menus are fine. It’s all just fine. 

If it was a genre I enjoyed more, maybe “fine” would be enough, but it’s not. And, “just fine” isn’t enough to overcome the inherent issues of a genre like the extraction shooter. Only a relative few enjoy the kind of constant tension it fosters and that feeling of high risk, high reward. For the rest of us, Marathon is simply a reminder of what could have been.

It’s not awful. It’s not even bad. It’s just an okay game that quite frankly offers way too little for its $40 cost of entry. Seriously, $40 for a single extraction mode that only a relative handful of players like, on only 3-4 maps (at launch), hardly any weapons, a terrible new player experience, and a power system that largely depends on regular successes. That’s gotta be a tough sell even if you like these sorts of games, especially since Escape from Tarkov and Arc Raiders are already there and already cater towards the more hardcore and more casual portions of this audience respectively.

Note: It’s come out that players will be matched based on their overall gear/power level, so at the very least you’re not likely to get pubstomped by sweats as a new or weaker player. So credit to Bungie for that at least.

So don’t let the hyperbolic discourse surrounding the game fool you. Marathon isn’t the next Concord, nor is it the next Halo. It’s just another okay extraction shooter that could have (and should have) been a lot more. I hope that those who like it will get to enjoy it for a good long while, but, as for me, I’ve got other, better games to play.

---

What do you think about the Marathon situation? Will you be jumping into it at launch?

Image from the Steam page