Marathon is out in less than six months and thereās still a lot we donāt know about it. But thanks to the current closed alpha, weāve had a chance to finally go hands-on with Bungieās first new project in over a decade and the latest live-service game coming out of the PlayStation portfolio. The results so far have left us scratching out heads.
Right now at least,Marathon is a fascinating sci-fi premise wrapped up in a pretty familiar and somewhat forgettable extraction shooter facsimile. The alpha was originally going to be NDAād but Bungie ended up lifting that requirement after many content creators balked at the provision. And while thereās definitely still plenty of polish to be added to the look of Marathonās world, its UI, and other visual elements, things seem to be running well under the hood. No real bugs, no real performance issues on PlayStation 5, and no problems matchmaking or staying connected.
But while the moment-to-moment gameplay in Marathon can be solid, the alpha left us with a bunch of questions about how Bungieās new shooter can succeed and what will set it apart in an ever-more-crowded field of established alternatives.
Ethan Gach: Still waters run deep. Can we say the same about Marathon?
Zack Zwiezen: You can only answer that if you got an alpha code. Which both of us did. And while I donāt have an answer for your smarty-pants philosophical question, I do have thoughts on Marathon! Not all of them positive.
I spent a lot of my time playing and then thinking about this game and going āHmmmā¦ā
EG: Itās in a very weird spot! At least whatās playable in the alphaātwo maps, four runners, and a couple of contracts.
As someone with a need to watch XP and faction rep meters fill up, I felt surprisingly un-obsessed with Marathon after playing a couple hours (the game has some of that stuff but it wasnāt enough to overcome my ennui). Still, the conundrum of what Marathon may or may not end up being is something my mind keeps coming back to.
ZZ: Yeah. After a few hours of playing Marathonās alphaāwhich as you mention is not the full gameāIām not really hungry to hop back in. And Iām also not sure who this game is actually forā¦
The alpha feels too watered-down to attract the extraction sickos who have 2000 hours in Tarkov. But it still feels like itās going to be too punishing to attract casual Destiny players and battle royale fans.
I saw someone, canāt remember who, tweet that the game is like Apex Legends: But Now You Lose Everything When You Die Edition and thatās not completely fair, but not that far off either.
EG: The pitch for this game is something like, āWhat if the extraction mode from a free-to-play Call of Duty game played like Destiny 2 and was priced somewhere in the middle?ā And when you say it like that itās hard to get excited, but moment-to-moment the gunplay is on point and the art direction and world itself have me very intrigued.
ZZ: On paper that pitch is really a hard sell. And trying to convince some friends to play this has been a struggle.
But yeah, the gunplay feels really, really good. At one point I was fighting some NPC bots in a trippy sci-fi warehouse with weird lights and it was awesome. Then I had to rummage through their loot for some items and got killed by a player seconds later and lost everything.
The problem was that I ended up just thinking, āMan, I wish this wasnāt an extraction shooter that forced me to play with randos to survive!ā Which I doubt is what Bungie was going for with the alpha.
EG: Tell me more about why losing loot is such a buzzkill for you. Itās definitely something I think will be polarizing for certain types of Bungie fans but it doesnāt bother me personally.
ZZ: I think the problem is that, as you mentioned, thereās not enough (in the Alpha at least) other STUFF to work toward.
So if you drop in with a cool gun you successfully extracted with but you get insta-killed by some rando with a sniper, it feels bad. I made no progress on in-game challenges, because they arenāt a thing (and donāt seem to be a thing in the full game) and I didnāt complete any contracts. And that cool gun and everything else is gone. And if that happens a few too many times, it feels really punishing.
And like, in Fortnite, even bad matches donāt really punish me that much. I donāt lose anything and Iām always making progress on like 200 different challenges and my battle passes.
But with Marathon (and other extraction shooters) you can have a run of bad matches that just feels awful. And Iām not sure, without some big changes, that Bungie is going to get a Destiny-size community to support Marathon.
EG: For a game about grabbing loot, that part was definitely the least exciting to me. I think thatās partly about the narrow scope of whatās available in the alpha but also partly an issue with how anti-climactic the flow and drama of matches feel.
Showdowns with other players were very few and far between, and usually ended before both sides could fully engage. The loot caches all sort of run together in my mind, and there was a surprising lack of interesting enemies.
Occasionally thereād be an invisible security unit or beefier elite but I experienced very little in the way of big moments like, āoh, we found great loot!ā or āoh, weāre in a mini-boss fight!ā or ānow weāre in a shootout to get to the extraction point.ā None of that really āpoppedā for me.
ZZ: Matches tended to blend together for me. I donāt really have many āCOOL STORYā moments to share. And yeah, combat with other players is pretty rare and tends to be the worst part of this game.
I feel like the time-to-kill is so short in this that I could drop people with anything and they, in turn, could do the same to me. So fights werenāt about who had found some cool gear or had a smart spot, but just āWho spotted who first and pulled the trigger?ā
It led to a situation where I started to get annoyed and bored with NPC bot fights and would just get a few cool items/guns and extract. But then, I started to wonder why I was even looting guns if I was mostly avoiding or dreading combat with NPCS and rarely saw other players or felt like my guns mattered.
EG: I was, frankly, shocked how little we ran into human opponents while playing. The max map capacity is currently 18 teams of three players. Iām not sure if thatās a tech limitation or calibrated to limit chaos but something is off about the density of āthings to doā on the map right now.
It feels like there needs to be a lot more AI enemies, or the matches need to be shorter and that threat needs to ramp up more quickly. I can imagine much more exciting scenarios where players are too busy trying to survive to really stab one another in the back at the end of a round, but as it stands the matches didnāt follow any memorable arcs.
Thatās not to say theyāre boring moment-to-moment, because you are constantly on the lookout for threats and optimal routes, high ground, good cover, loot, etc. But thereās a glaring hole at the center of whatās in the alpha right now.
ZZ: I do think, as I realized how safe I usually was in most areas, I did get a bit bored of it after a few hours.
But I wonder if the number of players is directly tied to the size of the maps, which arenāt massive. And yeah, I agree. I was shocked by how much of the game was me running around the map collecting random sci-fi gear while never seeing other players.
Speaking of the maps, neither of them are great! And Iām not talking about the rough-looking outdoor areas. (Which I assume will get a few more passes before Septemberās launch.)
Both maps in the alpha lack any memorable regions or interesting landmarks. Itās just a collection of a lot of the same-looking assets spread around an area in a maze-like fashion. Nothing remarkable.
EG: Itās ironic that you spend the game playing as synthetic āshellsā that are printed anew each time you die because I can totally imagine a really fun, compelling PVP experience inside the āshellā of what Marathon appears to be at the moment. Based on what weāve heard about the final game, though, Iām not sure there will be enough bold design swings or interesting ideas to make it feel alive.
I canāt tell you what Bungie should do but I can tell you a few things are missing right now. The recipeās a bit bland, like a pizza cooked to perfection but the sauce is too thin and the crust tastes like water.
ZZ: Do you think this game comes out in September as planned? Because based on the negative or middling reactions Iām seeing online, Iām wondering what the vibes are inside Bungie and if there is any possibility that this thing gets delayed until 2026 so they can make some bigger changes. So they can spice up the pizza and add more toppings.
EG: I donāt think it comes out. And if it does, it will be because Sony doesnāt believe in it and is ready to move on. I think there will be a public beta around July or so and based on the level of participation and buzz coming out of that, a call will be made then.
But I hope Iām wrong and it comes together in the final product because I truly do love the lore and vibes. I very much want a reason to exist in that world and see where it goes in a way that I did not with Concord
ZZ: Same! I want this game to succeed. And like you said, thereās good stuff in here. I think Bungie, given a bit more time, could tinker with what is here and end up with something that blows up and becomes a big hit. And I want to see that happen.
But Iām not convinced, after playing the alpha, that Marathon is going to succeed. I hope Iām wrong, if only so we keep getting more awesome short movies like that last one.
Ultimately, I think they need to make a decision. Is this going to be a fairly punishing hardcore extraction shooter or something that is designed to appeal to more players from more genres? And perhaps this is a debate raging internally at the studio and was part of the reason the NDA was lifted. Maybe they want to see what the reaction is, and different sides can use the online conversations to plead their case.
For now, Iāll probably play more of the alpha. See if it clicks more with me. How about you?
EG: Iāll definitely hop on a few more times and continue hunting for the magic. Itās by no means bad and it certainly feels better to play than some other extraction shooters.
Thereās a lot thatās not in the alpha, so I donāt want to make up my mind too early based on just the roughest proof of concept. And because Iām a sicko I will definitely max out any ranks I can.
ZZ: Same. The shooty-shooty bits are fun enough and the world is neat. I hope it all comes together in the end.
.
