Loss aversion. The cognitive bias is where it hurts a lot more to lose something than to gain something of equal value. Where a person would rather not risk losing something even if there’s an equally good chance of gaining something just as good, sometimes even more value in exchange. I’ve learned this kind of behavior from playing things like JRPGs. Where there could be an even harder boss encounter after the one you’re struggling with, something we’ve come to know from Dark Souls as “Phase 2.” I’ve ended up as one of those players who will hold off on using the X-Potion or Full Heal even on the final boss, because who knows how much harder the post-game bosses would be. Something I’ve learned, particularly because of the Tales series. They are ultimately left unused even as I shelve the game, and I move on to another one.
So imagine what the experience would be like for a person like this, where he has to enter a game that never really tells you anything, and expects to see you fail over and over, and penalizes you for it. Sure, I’ve learned to deal with lost souls from Elden Ring and the like, but dropping your loadout, your consumables, your equipment? I haven’t experienced that happening since my long, long forgotten days in PVP duels from MMOs like Ragnarok Online or Perfect World. And guess what? I never wanted to play those modes!
It’s not like I’m completely clueless on shooters either, I’ve played my fair bit of Apex Legends, and even delved quite a bit into the ill-fated Highguard. And of course, I’ve had my fair dose of your hero shooting games like Deadlock, Rivals, and Gundam Evolution (that one deserved better). But I was completely stumped at how to learn the map and complete my objectives. Being at the mercy of teams that simply knew how to play the game better, it was becoming a pretty frustrating experience for me. The most experience I have with extraction shooters would be Helldivers 2, and that game’s closer to Contra than an extraction shooter, really. See? It even has a stratagem for 30 lives.
It wasn’t until a friend of mine who’s much more into the genre that things began to click. He showed me the proverbial ropes, the dos and don’ts, what to watch out for, and what to keep an eye on, how opting to use the knife is actually quite ideal, which never occurred to me since I’m always using guns. I was finally picking up kills and takedowns, and it wasn’t always a victory, but getting the job done was pretty satisfying.
While I’m certain that Sony has the highest expectations set for Bungie, considering the price of their acquisition. They’re probably not going to get the numbers they want out of Marathon, not to say this isn’t a great game. I think it capably lands the experience it had in mind, as I got more used to doing runs, I just don’t think everyone is going to want to play this sort of game. So, are you going to be one of those runners who may actually have a penchant for a punishing playthrough every time? Through these unknown parts out in space in the far future, where you’re remote-controlling android units to steal from under the authorities’ noses to make a quick buck? Here’s a relatively quick tour of the game for you to figure it out.
Production (3 / 5)
Marathon is certainly a game where they decided to take risks, and in this case, I don’t think they half-assed it at all. However, taking that risk will have certain consequences. The entire outlandish aesthetic they decided to go with will definitely throw a more general audience to the side of being less interested rather than more.
The most glaring of these choices, I would say, are the character models people will decide to play as. They’re a mix of what looks like action figures and humans cosplaying them. Lore-wise, they’re called shells, and seem to be closer to the concept of androids that you project your consciousness to for doing runs on the maps currently available to you. The most human-looking one was a thief, but even at that, they all still occupy the uncanny valley area. Where the designs look too human to feel mechanical, but are still anatomically very human instead of robotic. To be honest, you end up just shooting them until they spew blue oil all over the place, so you don’t really spend a lot of time actually looking at them in detail. So it’s something you can eventually get over.
The maps are actually kind of the same, but since they don’t talk or act like humans, I’m a lot more receptive to their designs. The design philosophy for all of this stems from what was seen as futuristic back in the 80s and 90s. Bright, striking colors, strong contrasts, but this time combined with a more minimalist sense of design. If you look up the original 1994 game, you’ll notice that they do pick up concepts from it, but they tried to make more complex maps that allow you to move along the 3D space. Without actually traversing and exploring the details of these maps and locations within them, you’ll likely think that everything looks the same, and will easily get lost trying to find whatever’s required in the complex interiors of each environment. That’s how I was.
Guns and weapons look totally unattractive to me; they look more like toys than guns that actually work. I guess you can give it the space aesthetic, and that’s why they mostly carry these odd forms. What I do appreciate is that I can tell which gun the enemy is shooting me down with based on the sound, and half the time I can tell where they’re shooting from.
Speaking of sound, the audio experience planned out for gameplay is pretty amazing. You immediately know if the thing across the room is another runner or some robot from UESC forces; you can roughly tell where a fight might be happening. And you’ll later learn what sort of actions are best to take to keep enemies from gaining information on where you are. The voice acting as well as the music match the tone they’re going for with the game’s aesthetic, and I don’t really have any strong opinions about it beyond that.
Maybe they could’ve done a little better than just straight-up channel transmissions with everyone, so I actually have a bit more to bite into than just a set of entities talking at me. But hey, Marathon’s presentation is very much function over form, so they’re not too interested in giving you a lot of window dressing to improve your view.
Mechanics (5 / 5)
Playing Marathon is certainly a learning experience. Primarily because the game is seriously not interested in teaching you anything. But that’s kind of part of the charm, figuring things out on your own, and deciding what works best for you. That’s what I believe is the running idea behind this title’s design, which is opaque.
It will hand you contracts, and you get to choose which contract you commit to, but all they really tell you is that it’s in a building at STATION. Or it’s in the north part of MAINTENANCE. And that’s really it. There may be obstacles or keys required, but how you’ll go about getting that, or figuring out that it’s what you actually need, is entirely for you to find out.
A personal anecdote would be the opening contract for Sekiguchi, where I’m supposed to inject something that was slowly destroying my shell. And before I get knocked down, I should get to a body scanner in another part of that same map. It took me several hours of trying, which was finally concluded with a YouTube consultation. I had no idea what the body scanner looked like, and I was guessing it was something like an MRI machine, which are giant, horizontal tubular objects that lie around in rooms. Turns out it was just some closet-looking booth in the reception area. I had no idea how to figure out that this was what I should be looking for. You also have to worry about your draining life, the UESC robots patrolling the area, and last but not least, potential rival runners stalking you as you try to complete your run. So these factors, stacking on top of each other, gave me a lot more tension to work out than I was comfortable with. So imagine my relief and annoyance when I realized how simple the task ultimately was.
There will always be more generic contracts you can take on, like just taking out enemy soldiers or looting certain items from certain maps. But that doesn’t sound too exciting as a solo experience, does it?
But just because it doesn’t tell you a lot, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t pay attention to detail. You can customize your loadout when preparing to go for a run, what sort of shield you’ll carry, what sort of guns you’ll have, the amount of ammo you’re comfortable with, and more. Weapons also have different behaviors with their own pros and cons. Electric weapons are highly economic but have terrible missile speed. Heavy ammo is pretty effective but loud. Shotguns, on the other hand, are rather broken and can make encounters end quickly, even against fully kitted out runners.
And that all contributes to having great gunplay, which is something we can expect out of Bungie. A friend of mine claims these are basically Halo guns, but I’ve only played one Halo game once at a cousin’s place, so I really can’t be asked to make that comparison. What I do recognize is that the gunplay is pretty solid, making PVP pretty engaging since it’s easy to make your shots hit, and the TTK (time to kill) is either short or nearly instant for many weapons. Shooting well lets you dominate your opponents? Who knew?
This kind of setup also makes Marathon the sort of game where every action you take will be important. Where wrong decisions can mean losing an encounter, but at the same time, not impossible to come back from. Normally, with a patient enough team, you can save yourselves from a near wipeout, but you will likely lose loot or even gear. However, if you find yourselves in a good position, you can really do some nasty work against a team of rivals and get so much out of it as spoils of victory. It’s this high-risk, high-reward structure that a player should get used to, especially if they’re still learning the game. They will likely get ambushed quite often until they figure out how to move more discreetly and position well. Meaning they won’t really get to the high-rewards part as often as they’d like. This was a real source of frustration for me, as it was difficult to communicate and coordinate with non-English speakers; the game became a horror story of just trying to survive during these times. So if ever, I hope you match up with friends to play this game or at least find people you can get along with while playing Marathon. It really helps ease up the anxiety and frustration when you have people who can keep the game fun.
Content (4.5 / 5)
The main way of progression here is to complete contracts from one of the 6 contacts you make as you start the game. Each of them offers unique rewards, upgrade trees, and even ways to play the game. I would group them as PvE, PvP, exploration, and research, and finally, one that’s just there to cause chaos through the game.
Each of them also has a focus on what they offer; one of them will give you good shields and restoratives, others will give you better tools or attachments, and another will give you better weapons or upgrades for your shell to use. You can only choose to work on one of them at a time, but you don’t have to commit to the more complicated ones if you’re having a hard time. All of them have a generic loot and shoot contract that is less rewarding, but can be easier to do since they can be completed across several runs in any map. It’s here that we can see how Bungie wants you to be able to engage in the game in many ways, and I think this is most expressed in being able to play as a Rook in Marathon.
To explain it a little better, shells are basically job classes you can pick between, where their key differences are the loadouts they carry. Destroyer has a shield and a missile pack, Thief can scout out areas with a drone and detect loot in her vision, Triage can heal and revive allies quickly, and so on. Rook is a shell that can only be played solo and can’t actually complete contracts. But he also comes with a random free weapon, as well as armor and a backpack. Given a shorter run time, his real role is to give solo players more time to get used to the maps, and maybe grab some quick loot on the way out. The fact that Rook can blend within the UESC forces makes it very easy for him to exfil (basically, safely exit the map) alone. Given his extra gear, a Rook can farm off other weakened teams before they make it out of the map as well.
There’s also a myriad of equipment to consider, upgrades, buff items, mines, grenades, and of course, the healthy helping of gun variety that they present on the get-go. I think there’s at least 20 of them, maybe closer to 30. To have this many guns in the game and make them all feel unique enough to remember really does deserve praise. Not to mention that nearly all of them, save for maybe 2 or 3 weapons, have a fairly fast TTK.
For the maps, there are, at present, 4 major maps around Marathon to explore. Perimeter, Marsh, Outpost, and Cryo. Cryo is only unlocked on weekends and requires players to enter a loadout value of at least 5000 credits. Meaning the gear, tools, ammo, and whatever else you’re carrying as a runner has to amount to that. Cryo Archive is also only open during the weekends. Making it so that you grind for gear and reputation during the weekdays, then go into high-risk raids that promise great loot during the weekends.
Features (3 / 5)
Remember how I said I’m not really into the aesthetic of this game? Yeah, that holds through to the battlepass. Their choices of skins and feature designs for the shells and the guns just don’t appeal to me. The whole candy colored toy-looking weapons that they pair up with these very gamer-esque UI effects, and stickers. It just clashes so hard with the corporate espionage angle they’re presenting Marathon with. I can see the appeal, I can see what they’re going for, and it just doesn’t work for me.
The whole appeal of skins is grounded in being able to customize a game or character you already like from the get-go. The shells and guns of Marathon, I think, fall short on this premise, so I can’t imagine anyone buying into these custom skins. They just don’t carry enough personality; they don’t present enough for me to like them.
That being said, the technical achievements for this title are rather commendable. Barely sitting at around 20 GB on my PC right now, having that many detailed maps and locations, and being able to run smoothly with my RTX 3060 Ti, which I think is the more common hardware people have these days. Sure, it’s not on the maximum possible settings, but I’m not compromising on getting a steady 60 fps either. Lowering things like shadows or ambient occlusion doesn’t feel like a lot to pay for either.
Finally, it has to be addressed that this game from Bungie will have a very Bungie thing happen to it. Seasonal resets. Meaning all the loot you have and even the upgrade trees you’ve invested in will be wiped every start of a new season. Ideally, this is to keep the game fresh and even for new players coming in or coming back for newer content.
Conclusion
Marathon teaches me to let go of my anxiety and fear, that in the end, everything is a tool for my next goal. When you put it in that perspective, suddenly, all the credits you’re saving up, all the guns, ammo, and other equipment you’re so afraid to use, like how I used to view X-Potions in Final Fantasy games, they all become very transient. I’m going to lose them later anyway, so why be afraid to lose them now? Might as well use that shiny-looking gun we got, right? It aligns perfectly with the requirements for ranked and Cryo Archive raids, where they will require a minimum amount for your loadout choice.
Losing what you’re holding onto might be what’s needed for you to be able to gain something new and possibly greater. With the 20-ish hours spent I have with this game, I think I’ve grown a new appreciation for these core extraction shooters.
I have to say, this is actually quite a capably designed, well-thought-out system. The combat is tight, the information the field gives you is just enough, and the potential for great moments of gameplay is genuinely there. However, I only got to appreciate it when there was literally someone patient enough to sit me through the ins and outs of Marathon. I don’t think I would’ve achieved this without some level of handholding.
I think the onboarding process of this game is too abrupt. Perhaps some sort of campaign would’ve helped me learn the game better at a pace that I would find more palatable. I mean, the original Marathon was a game about fighting aliens in space, and this new game is made by a team that’s famous for making games about fighting aliens in space. There might be an opportunity there. There’s just not enough personality or stakes for me to invest in, so I hardly have any attachment to the game.
This isn’t going to be one of those titles that just grows a gigantic fanbase. It’s not going to be the kind of title that will bring the numbers that Sony is hoping for. But it is going to have more of a cult following, and maybe people like me will drop in every season to check out what’s new, and move on after a week or two. But hey, this game is already showing signs that it’s willing to try and experiment, and therefore is planning to improve over time. I would recommend it if you are into these stricter FPS games that demand more tactical decisions than twitch reflexes.
Marathon may have a long future ahead of itself, provided it doesn’t run out of steam. Scoring a 4 / 5.
Available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series Systems, and PC.