I’ve spent over 100 hours on Marathon, Bungie’s newest game since Destiny 2, and they delivered an extraction shooter that is addicting despite its high risk concept. Blink and your run is over, but win and you’ll feel like you’re at the top of the world. It’s hard to get into, but once you get over Marathon’s initial hump, you’ll appreciate its satisfying gunplay, impressive level design, and a gameplay loop that keeps me going for more.
The gameplay loop is the usual extraction shooter concept, as you load in solo or with a team with a set loadout, complete a certain task, loot valuable items, and extract alive. Die in any way and you lose everything you brought with you.
Durandal is watching
Players take on the role of Runners, individuals that work for various companies that fuel their ability to throw their subconscious into disposable bodies called Shells to infiltrate key locations in Tau Ceti IV, a planet that was in the process of being the next habitable home for humanity. It’s all about gaining resources, and more importantly figuring out what happened, as Earth has lost contact with the settlers already in Tau Ceti, as well as to Marathon, the gigantic colony ship that ferried over 24,000 humans to the new planet.
What happened is better known to those who played the original Marathon trilogy of games (also developed by Bungie), as this extraction shooter is set 100 years afterwards. For those unfamiliar, it’s a mystery tucked away within audio logs and reports unlocked when doing specific challenges and quests in this new game.
I wanted to know more about the Marathon ship, the antagonist AI Durandal, and the security officer player character from the original trilogy. It’s a sad way to re-introduce this fleshed-out world, as I dove in with zero knowledge about the series, but realized early on how interesting Marathon’s backstory really is, making me wish that a remake of the original game was in the cards.
Marathon’s rich story is paired with an art style that’s loud and immediately striking, but not always in a good way. Environments and characters feel like they’ve been splashed with paint, highlighting clashing colors and chaotic visuals that can be overwhelming at first. It’s the kind of presentation players will either love or completely hate.
I lean toward the latter. While it gives Marathon a strong identity, it also adds unnecessary friction to a genre that’s already hard to get into. That said, there are standout elements, as the faction designs and the distinct look of each Shell help anchor the chaos and give the game some clarity in places where it matters.
The art is subjective, as the real struggle in Marathon is the player’s onboarding. The initial Server Slam was my first taste of the game. And it was clear on my first day that there’s a lot of friction players will have to endure to get to the good stuff.
The New Player Experience will be a Struggle
The UI and inventory system is Marathon’s weakest element, as it can be intimidating at first glance to know what is valuable to pick up and bring back home. For example, when you find an Implant (an item that increases your Runner’s stats), you’ll have to hover on the item to understand what it does. For a beginner, that’s too much information to take in, especially when you find a new item during a run with the possibility of a player ready to ambush your team.
Before a match, going through the management system and factions took a bit of getting used to as well, from all the weapon attachments, the understanding of salvage items, consumables, to what Cores can do for each Shell. It’s overwhelming, making the first hours of Marathon a hard sell to those not familiar with the Escape from Tarkov journey. This is also not my first extraction shooter, so if I felt annoyed by navigating its systems, what more for someone completely new to this type of game?
Server Slam was a blessing, as these pain points were left behind that weekend, and on launch day, I knew what to expect. With experience under my belt, my focus was no longer spent absorbing everything about the game but just playing it, and I was having a blast.
Bungie still delivers top-notch shooting
I’m a big fan of Bungie’s gunplay. From Halo to Destiny, it always felt snappy and satisfying. I didn’t simply play Destiny 2 for years just for the loot grind, it’s also because it was just fun to shoot things in a Bungie game, and that’s still the case in Marathon.
Marathon comes with a solid roster of guns covering short-, mid-, to long-range encounters. The WSTR shotgun feels powerful and is something you can trust in narrow passages, and the LMGs in the game feel weighted but pack a punch to hold a line through their built-in shields and bigger ammo counts. Sniper rifles feel great to shoot (though a bit overtuned), and most of the rifles and guns have distinct properties and rate of fire to stand out. There’s only a handful that fall on the tail-end in terms of effectiveness, but the spread of viable weapons add value to the looting of the game, as it’s exciting to find a Longshot sniper rifle or any shotgun in this game.
With Marathon being an extraction shooter, the tension is at an all-time high as gun fights feel simultaneously arcade-y and tactical. Players with better gear have an advantage, but lower-geared players with better positioning can come up at the top. The heat system also grounds player movement, as any movement action like jumping, sliding, or using Runner skills will increase your Heat meter. When it maxes out, you are a sitting duck, as all you can do is mostly walk. This vulnerability gives room for rewarding good decision-making and better planning. Bungie then added a class system to provide another layer to the gunplay, as players can pick Shells that have a set of skills and passives that cover a specific role.
Team play and understanding the environment are also key, and the game’s audio design has done a fantastic job at allowing players to naturally react based on sound alone. I can tell aurally if a player triggered an air drop event, or if someone tried to enter the tox room, a special loot room filled with toxic gas that slowly eats away at your health. I know if a player is below me, walking in water, and what kind of Shell they are using due to the unique sounds of their skills. It’s not in the same audio design quality as Hunt Showdown, but it’s definitely close, as I feel crippled without proper earphones.
The Solo and team play experience
Marathon comes with the ability to play with a team of three, a team of two, or solo. In teams, firefights can end in an instant or drag on with proper communication. I’ve played with friends and it’s the best way to experience the game, as Marathon feels more tuned for team engagements. Don’t expect much from random players, as like any game that matches you with people you don’t know, the experience can be painful as they hardly coordinate or work with you. It can be exceptionally hard in the Asia or Oceanic regions due to the language barrier.
For solo, it’s more of a survival horror game than anything.
When I was playing alone, the starting days felt tame. You could tell when someone was around, as we have players figuring things out on their own terms. But as the weeks go by we now have experienced solo players just creeping about, avoiding unnecessary noise, and preparing ambushes for incoming players. There are games where I barely hear anything out of the ordinary, and when I find someone it feels like we were both startled by seeing each other.
It’s a tense experience, as it should be. This is how most of the solo experience tends to be in extraction shooters. Going in solo matches you with other solo players, but those who want to challenge themselves can go with the Rook Shell, where they come in during the tail-end of a match filled with teams, as they are tasked to extract with any goodies, and have a set loadout to fight against 3-man teams still alive in the raid. Both are fantastic experiences, but solo players won’t get the full Marathon experience, as you can’t jump into the endgame map Cryo Archive alone, as you need to go in with friends or a group of random players.
As much as it sounds punishing insofar as dying means losing all current equipment, Marathon is actually quite forgiving due to the Faction quests and their rewards. Progressing through the six available factions will provide players with upgrades like higher overall heat capacity, more stash space, the ability to buy better shields, or access to free items and sponsored kits for a reasonable price. The higher I get in each faction, the more accessible the better loadouts become.
Blue shields and bigger backpacks become common for me as the weeks go by, and with players also progressing and having access to better items, the power level naturally increases as the days go by, which is clear and evident as the game ages.
There’s even a barter system that allows players to get ammo, weapons, or specific guns by trading certain items you commonly find in any map. Progressing through Factions makes me feel like losing gear isn’t so painful anymore, as I always have alternatives, and multiple losses are mostly covered by one big win.
Bungie Created a Solid Shooter for A Small Audience
With Destiny 2 at an all-time low, most of Bungie’s attention went to Marathon, another sci-fi title that will barely attract a solid casual audience, but will definitely turn the heads of the masochist, players that get the thrill of the fight where adrenaline goes on an all-time high. This game will make you shake, give you sweaty hands, and some might say it can be a horror game at certain moments.
As much as people are wondering why Bungie went for a niche subgenre, one thing for sure is that they nailed why it’s now loved by many.
Masters in Map Design
Marathon’s difficulty gave me the impression that it can be treated as a roguelike of sorts. It launched with four maps, and each one feels relatively harder than the next, as if I’m going through a challenging mountain climb. Each map feels good to jump into and play even after spending hours on each one. Perimeter is the first and most straightforward of the bunch, while Dire Marsh is more complex, with fog elements and open spaces that give snipers and other long-range weapons a place to shine, while providing narrow spaces to allow other weapons to flourish.
The third is Outpost, a smaller but condensed map that revolves around teams working towards getting access to the Pinwheel, the structure at the middle of the map that has multiple entry points with each entrance meeting at the center. It’s an intense race to who will get inside and escape with all the goodies.
The endgame is Cryo Archive, the last available map that’s not on Tau Ceti, but on the Marathon ship itself. It’s only available on weekends and requires a minimum gear value to enter, forcing players to bring their best gear for an attempt at earning the game’s top gear.
This is the most demanding and difficult map I have ever experienced from Bungie. I’ve played and overcome many of Destiny 2’s biggest and most challenging raids that required 6 players to coordinate in order to complete a series of encounters. Cryo Archive is more difficult than any of those, as this is multiple teams going in with their best gear, all with different objectives, working towards opening any of the seven locked vaults in the map. Each of these vaults has unique mechanics and requirements to unlock. They need a coordinated team, and none of them are easy. You then top that off with other teams coming in to mostly shoot on sight.
It’s exhilarating and something Bungie should be proud of, as the feeling I had when going through a run, unlocking vault puzzles, all the while hearing a team nearby ready to engage us gets my heart racing every time.
I have only scratched the surface of what Cryo Archive has in store for me, as I’ve only extracted safely a few times and have only looked inside one vault (didn’t open it, killed the team that did). There’s even a boss encounter at the final vault that I have yet to complete.
Cryo Archive is exceptional in terms of being the endgame, as it’s the final leg in the game for now. It’s an experience that requires planning and preparation before making each attempt. I compare the map to someone literally climbing a mountain. You can’t just go and do it. You need to prepare, gather your friends, and get enough resources to see if you can make it to the top. Some will make it there faster than others, but the end goal is clear.
Despite its complexity and difficulty, I’m not a fan of it being only available at certain times, as I believe players shouldn’t navigate their life around a game’s schedule. As of this writing, Cryo Archive will be available on Thursdays to Sundays, while the rest of the days, the game’s Ranked mode will be active in its absence. I understand that people need time to gather resources, and that the game’s item economy will be overbloated faster, but time is gold, and not everyone can play on the weekends. That’s just the fact, and it’s yet another pain point that narrows Marathon’s audience to specific players.
Despite the many losses and frustrations, I have come to appreciate what Bungie has delivered in Marathon. It launched with solid performance across the board, with very little issues that would frustrate its player base. I’m playing on the PC and running the game on an old system running an old RTX 2060, but it runs and looks smooth at 60 frames per second, making it a game accessible for PC owners that don’t have top-end specs.
Devs are reacting rather quickly by patching exploits and issues that could sour the ever-growing meta of the game, and I find myself itching to jump to get myself ready for yet another run at Cryo.
A Fantastic Shooter that asks a lot from players
Despite all of my praise, this game is a hard sell, as it’s a game for those who’ve already understood the thrill of extraction shooters. It’s not as overly complicated as Escape from Tarkov, as that remains to be the ultimate hardcore extraction shooter experience, but Marathon isn’t the casual experience seen in Arc Raiders. It sits comfortably in the middle, leaning more toward Tarkov, as it’s one of the more punishing shooters out there.
I commend Bungie for aiming at a specific experience. If you’re into extraction shooters and are coming from one and looking for something different, this fits the bill perfectly. This isn’t a shooter that was watered down, nor does it feel rushed and underbaked. Everything feels polished and ready for consumption. The team knew what kind of game they wanted to make and they stuck with it, absorbed player feedback, and launched with a game capable of capturing a solid player base. As you play more of the game and understand its look and systems, you’ll see the where you need to be and it’s a goal many still cling to reach one day, as the Cryo Archive map has created this ultimate goal that’s worth pursuing.
But I can’t stress this enough – this is a game made for a specific kind of player. Players that love the thrill of a gun fight, the challenge of losing it all, and the rewards that come with proper planning and smart decision making, as Marathon delivers a level of tension hardly seen in shooters.
Verdict: 3.5 / 5 (Great)
PROS
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A Satisfying take on the extraction shooter genre
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Snappy gun play and an overall challenging gameplay loop
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One of Bungie’s best map designs
CONS
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Intimidating onboarding for newcomers
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Content like Ranked and Cryo Archives are only available at certain times
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Bold art direction that won’t appeal to everyone
What I’ve Played
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Reached level 70 this season and have explored all three maps extensively
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Have all Factions over level 15, with two maxed out
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Experienced Ranked and have done multiple runs of Cryo Archive in two separate weekends
*This review is based on a Steam review copy provided to the reviewer
About the Author – Carlos Hernandez
Carlos Hernandez is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Too Much Gaming, where he writes about video games, reviews, and industry news. A lifelong gamer, he would do anything to experience Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time again and has a love/hate relationship with games that require hunting for new gear to improve your character.
