Bungie are experts in one thing: making games that feel good. Specifically, making their weapons feel good. After decades of making shooters, they know how to make each of their weapons feel with the recoil, the heft, and the exact sound so that they stand out from each other, feel pleasant to handle, and each person finds the one they feel comfortable with. Something that companies with much more popular franchises like theirs, such as Call of Duty or Fortnite, have never managed in the same way.
That’s why people haven’t stopped playing Destiny. That’s why the Halo franchise up to Reach is considered legendary. And that’s why the Marathon trilogy is regarded as a milestone in FPS games. Practically no other game feels like the games Bungie makes. And Marathon, their new game, is no exception. Although that won’t guarantee its success.
It has never felt so good to shoot
Marathon is a game set in the universe of the original trilogy, released on Mac in the 90s and that would define FPS as we know it. Although these were single-player adventures, the new Marathon is more in line with the times and, to the disappointment of most classic fans, it is an extraction shooter. Set in the year 2893, 99 years after the original, we will have to travel to the planet Tau Ceti IV to infiltrate colonies, achieve objectives, eliminate our rivals, and escape alive. A formula similar to that of Arc Raiders.
Similar, but not the same, because Marathon is very focused on PvP. While in Arc Raiders collaboration and coordination among players is expected, in Marathon aggression is expected to be the response to all encounters. Any encounter with another group of Runners, the names of the operatives traveling to Tau Ceti IV to fulfill the corporations’ objectives, will necessarily end in a shootout, as there are no incentives to collaborate and many incentives to eliminate enemies. This makes the game more similar to an extraction shooter with team deathmatch elements than to what we currently know as an extraction shooter.
All of this is accompanied by a spectacular artistic section, with a very unique use of typography and graphic design. Although tremendously divisive, this gives it personality. And if we add a narrative developed in what are essentially visual novel scenes, all of this gives the game a lot of character.
What is the problem that Marathon faces? It’s coffee for hardcore coffee lovers. And we don’t say this as something negative, but as a fact. This is not a shooter for people who like Call of Duty to play with their friends, but for those who enjoy spending dozens of hours in Destiny because the weapons are tremendously satisfying and the gameplay loop is tense and addictive, making every fight feel like a brutally hard life-and-death battle. This creates two obvious problems. One from the audience and another from Sony.
From the audience’s perspective, it is evident that this is a niche game. It is not Arc Raiders. Whether it will become a mass-market game seems doubtful, as it demands a lot from players. Moreover, dedicated players already have their games to devote their time to. If Marathon can offer them something to make them abandon their current games to dedicate time to it, that will determine whether it is a success or a failure, in terms of total numbers. From Sony’s side, the situation is more delicate. After canceling several games-as-a-service projects and the failure of Concord, it does not seem they have any qualms about shutting down servers at the first opportunity. So it remains to be seen if good, but not excellent numbers — the most likely scenario for a game like this, even given its success as the third best-selling game on Steam currently — are enough for the survival of Marathon.
A good game that can fail
There is always room for surprise. That it could turn into another Arc Raiders. But while Arc Raiders was accessible and encouraged continued play without frustration, Marathon is the complete opposite: the more you play, the more reasons there are to abandon it unless you are deeply invested in its formula. For this reason, while we could very well be facing a great success like Helldivers 2, it seems doubtful that we are looking at a tremendous success like Arc Raiders.
Will this be enough for Sony? Only time will tell. With a release scheduled for March 5 and with previous server tests that have been a tremendous success, it has the potential to be a hit. Especially if it survives the inevitable player drop-off in the first two days and the first week without there being a discourse around how the new Concord or the new Highguard is. If that happens, it is unlikely that Marathon will recover. If it doesn’t happen, it is likely to perform well and have room to operate for a few months. And in that case, Bungie has a chance to move forward. Because against all odds with everything we had seen and all its controversies, Marathon has the legs for a good journey.
