Bungie released Marathon on the 5th of March for PlayStation, PC and Xbox Series X/S. It falls into the first-person shooter/extraction shooter genres. Marathon sets its story Tau Ceti IV in the year 2893. Where you take on the role of a Runner who are assigned on loot extraction missions.
A significant amount of controversy surrounded the game throughout its development stages. While this won’t be a full breakdown of every issue, I feel that it is important to acknowledge them beforehand. I am aware, that the behind-the-scenes situation was much more chaotic than I would have thought. While I won’t be listing them all here as there are far better sources that go into detail elsewhere.
Marathon doesn’t feature a campaign, because it is an online multiplayer game. It does however have a story to set up the events of the world and your role within it.
A colony ship’s distress signal has finally reached Earth; a corporation hires you to retrieve important information and artifacts. While having to fight enemy forces and other Runners. That is the very basic bare bones of the story without spoiling any parts of the story, if that’s possible.
What is Marathon?
The game functions as an online PvPvE extraction shooter. This is a style of game that I have never tried before. So I was interested to see how it plays. My first thoughts were extremely positive: the game looks amazing and reminded me of playing Destiny. My final thoughts, however, were the complete opposite. In that I turned the game off, and I didn’t want to turn this game on again.
That may seem like a harsh outlook for what is an online multiplayer game. Some people may think I’m being biased.
I assure you I went in wanting to enjoy myself. Especially when I saw the game has the option to do “Solo Runs.” Meaning I didn’t have to rely on other players or have them rely on me. That may have been the biggest mistake I made with this game. As playing on your own means when you are downed you do not have anyone to revive you.
This mechanic is fine in other games, but I don’t think it works here. The reason I feel that is because of what happens when you die and fail a run. To my knowledge. Every time you start a run and enter a match, you risk losing any loot/weapons that you have on you.
The idea works well and you can see it in games such as Fortnite. As each match is a self-contained event and nothing tends to carry over from one match to the other. However, this mechanic works as everyone starts off with the same weapon. Whereas, in Marathon, if you lose a gun, it’s gone. Leaving you hoping to find another one or something better on your next attempt.
How is the soundtrack?
The soundtrack is one of the strongest parts of the game. The music amplifies the games sci-fi energy that the game has and turns the dial to eleven. Which is brilliant in terms of making an atmosphere. The composer of Marathon’s soundtrack is Ryan Lott. Who has worked on projects like the movie Everything, Everywhere All At Once. In a developer video, Lott broke down his thinking for the soundtrack. He decided to not treat this like the traditional game background scores heard in other games. Lott instead went about building the game’s world through sound. The result was the planet the game is set on has its own soundtrack to reflect the environment.
In other games you would typically have multiple distinct and different tracks for characters and situations. Such as a hero’s theme of the villain’s theme. Marathon cannot do this due to their lack of well-defined characters- or at least characters with personality. The finished game of marathon has character archetypes, that players can choose from. None of which have a theme dedicated to them as they have no background or story to go with them.
How dose Marathon look graphically?
Now I can’t speak for others, but I think the graphics were brilliant. The environment and buildings are crisp and detailed. That at times I would find myself standing still in the middle of the room, just to admire the desk, scattered objects or a broken window. The whole world felt alive and that the buildings had been lived in.
One detail I thought was a good addition, was one that I noticed on one of my failed runs. After I had been shot and downed, I tried to get away from the attacker. I noticed that I left behind a trail of blue blood. This only happened once. I could well be mistaken on the colour or if I saw it, but the idea is very clever. It helps players track down a downed enemy if they are able to escape. This feature does rely on it being intentional and not just a glitch in the game.
My final thoughts.
This is a tough one as I want to like the game. The idea is solid and the music and graphics I think are fantastic. What does let the game down is the execution and the decision to make the gameplay loop revolve extraction mechanics. Although I can’t comment if they made a good example of the genre. Based on what I have seen- on top of the issues that plagued the game- I don’t think it succeeds.
Marathon could have become an amazing game with the right people behind it, but with a loss of players after launch and unfriendly mechanics to solo players, I don’t think this is going to be Bungies best game. I would say this game isn’t awful and can be enjoyed if played with the right people. I would say five out of ten for this game. The game remains playable, but it falls far short of greatness.
