My Honest Thoughts On The ‘Marathon' Reveal

Forbes

13-04-2025

Marathon
This weekend, Bungie debuted a lengthy stream in the wake of a huge creator event focused on Marathon, its upcoming extraction shooter that the studio has worked on for years, pre-dating its purchase by Sony.
After a trailer and some concept art and a couple ARGs, we now finally have a look at actual gameplay, and how both creators and the general public are reacting to Marathon's first look. While some aspects seem promising, I've come away from this event concerned about the fate of the game ahead of its release just five months from now in September.
A disclaimer up front here, I have not played the game yet as I did not attend the creator event. So, I am where most people are, sitting on the sidelines with impressions based on what was just shown, plus a broader knowledge of the market it's entering.
Marathon
Ever since its debut, the 'vibe' of Marathon has been excellent. I've probably watched the first trailer a few dozen times just because of how cool it was. I've had the recently released audio tracks on repeat since they arrived a few days ago. It's a sick-looking world, one that I'd love to live in.
FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Pinpoint By Linkedin
Guess The Category
Queens By Linkedin
Crown Each Region
Crossclimb By Linkedin
Unlock A Trivia Ladder
Though I will certainly dive into Marathon and give it a lengthy shot, ultimately, it is what I always knew it would be, an entirely PvP-focused extraction shooter. I think I need to divide things into two disparate things here, as whether it's 'for me' specifically is probably less relevant, given that anything that's purely PvP was just not going to be what I was hoping for, be it an arena shooter or battle royale. But this is not exactly news, and the demands of the industry do not operate on my whims.
Rather, we can comment on what was newly shown, and more generally how the broader public is reacting to it.
The vibes are no longer good.
I hate to say it, but scanning social media and essentially all the top comments on posts about the game, the sentiment is largely negative. Common complaints are that it looks boring, dated or like it's not doing enough to stand out.
You can see the split between the world of the game and how cool they can make it look in marketing materials, and how it looks when you're in the game itself. Looking at the metrics of the gameplay trailer online (some may say this is meaningless, but it does correlate with perception, and sometimes even the future success of titles), it's at a not-great 15K to 8K dislike ratio. Meanwhile, the exceptional cinematic short from Love, Death and Robots' Alberto Mielgo has a 49K to 2.3K ratio. It is a stunning work of art. It is also not the actual game.
The visual style of Marathon's promotional materials only translates to the game itself to a point. I was a bit concerned about how this would go given that we had seen really nothing in-engine to this point, even the pre-show teaser video wasn't. This Mielgo spot might as well be a Secret Level short. Rather, the actual game is layered on top of Bungie's long-running Tiger engine, and in many aspects, mainly character animations, it does appear at least a little dated compared to its competition, a bit too close to Destiny 2, a game which is now almost eight years old.
Despite not having played Marathon, I have little doubt that Bungie has crafted an excellent-feeling shooter. Between Halo and Destiny they have never not crafted an excellent-feeling shooter. However, the problem is that the gameplay here does not come off as especially new or innovative. It very much looks like Apex Legends gameplay, and while the 'classes' may be less locked than other games with broader customization, it still gives off those vibes. As an extraction shooter, however, it's missing things that other games in the genre have, proximity chat, social areas, solo modes, etc.
The scope of the game may actually be its biggest problem. Marathon is likely going to be priced at $40, as most reports indicate. Costing anything at all in a largely free-to-play market is hard at baseline, but Marathon is launching with just six heroes, three maps and one main mode. Apex had eight characters at launch and most importantly, was free. But, despite the price, this will be a game with paid seasonal battle passes and a shop full of microtransactions. Standard for the live service genre perhaps but again, with a not-common $40 price on top of it. This worked for Helldivers. That did not work for Concord.
No, I do not believe Marathon is going to be a new Concord. I think people forget what a truly unprecedented, generational failure that game was. But it is still a challenge in a brutal multiplayer market to get any new game to take off, much less one that costs anything up front.
Marathon
Marathon does seem to be a game that you're going to need to get hands on in order to see if it just feels that good where yeah, it's going to be something you want to invest into long term as more heroes, more maps and more modes will no doubt be added. I have little doubt these gunfights will play well. I do question the decision to launch an NDA-ed alpha just five months before release when you really want to get hands-on as fast as possible to start spreading the gospel if it's actually that good, but that's what's happening.
The social reaction is simply not very good, there's no getting around that, it's just a fact that probably 80% of the commentary you'll see based on viewing the gameplay isn't positive. Again, the original trailer, this new blockbuster cinematic, excellent. So many individual aspects of the game, art, music, likely lore, are stellar. The game, as a game? That remains to be seen, but you just cannot say that this initial gameplay reveal has blown many people away.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Bluesky
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.