I’ve been playing Marathon for a little over a month at the time of writing this review, and I’m still not sure that anyone can put a score on what this game offers. I’m handing you this caveat upfront because I want you to know that this feels like an unfinished game, but only in the sense that the first book in a trilogy is an unfinished story.
We should all know what an extraction shooter is by now. It places you, the player, into a map filled with potential loot to pick up, but you’ll only get to keep it if you get to an extraction point and successfully extract from the run. Marathon is exactly what you expect it to be in this very basic way, but it’s also so much more. It’s in the extras that you’ll find a reason to stick around.
Key Details
- Developer: Bungie
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
- Price: $39.99
- Review Code Provided: Yes, for PS5
Brilliant At The Basics
Let’s focus on those basics for a minute. At the time of this review, Marathon has four maps, each with a rough scale of increasing difficulty that slowly prepares you for the current endgame: Cryo Archive.
Permiter is your first stop, and you’re even allowed a few practice runs with fewer enemy players, known as Runners. This map is on the outskirts of the settlement that the crew of the Marathon established on Tau Ceti IV before mysteriously disappearing. It lacks a lot of high-value loot, but it is the best place to learn how to play the game.
Dire Marsh is the next location you’ll visit, one so pretty you’ll die most often because you’re too distracted by the sheer beauty of this swampy area. It’s kind of creepy, packed with the main AI enemy, UESC robotic soldiers of various kinds, but it holds intriguing secrets and pretty decent loot to boot.
The third map you’ll unlock before grinding levels for the endgame is Outpost. This place is as hostile as it gets. Loads of indoor spaces with closed corridors to be surprised in and plenty of mechanics to play with and accidentally draw in the UESC with. Regular Heat Cascades force you inside when you least expect it, adding a dynamism to runs and firefights that keeps them fresh.
Finally, you’ve got the first peek at the good ship Marathon itself in Cryo Archive. This map is different, akin to a raid in Destiny 2. It’s got mechanics to master so you can get to the end within the time limit and face a scary boss that drops the best loot in the game. It’s tense and always excellent fun.
Every map offers discoveries, and you never know what the UESC is up to or what other Runners are going to do. Everyone has a different goal in mind, and it’s those goals that make the endless tirade of runs you’ll put into Marathon all the more worthwhile.
Marathon Brings Meaning To Mindless Extraction Runs At Last
Before Marathon‘s release, I read a news piece discussing how an ARC Raiders player had put 300 hours into the game’s toughest challenges and emerged feeling underwhelmed and as if they’d wasted their time. Marathon has several systems working against that feeling, though I’ve gone back and forth on them a few times. However, overall, I’d say there’s more than enough to keep you going without your time feeling wasted for now, but Bungie needs to keep its seasonal promise if that’s going to be the case moving forward.
Firstly, you’ve got, as I’ve just alluded to, seasons. I don’t know precisely when the current season ends, but based on what we’ve seen so far, you’ll reset to Level 0 at the start of each new one. From there, you’ll keep jumping into runs and grind levels and earn rewards for various feats. Mercifully, you gain experience regardless of whether you extract or not, a huge W because of how much that shows the game values your time and effort.
Secondly, you have factions. Each one has its own ranks to work through by completing contracts, some of which are quite tough. You might need to gather and extract items, but other contracts require you to move between map locations and perform tasks before extracting.
Once again, there’s a mercy here. You can jump into runs with two randoms, and if any of you complete a task for a contract that any of you have, it progresses the contract. This means you could get downed at the start of the run, but if you keep watching your teammates, you might have your contract completed regardless. After all, it’s all experience and lucrative in-game cash at the end of the day.
Let’s pause on progression value there for a moment and talk about solo and team modes. Solo is tough, but fair, and allows you to access one of my favorite Shells, Rook. The big problem with going in solo is that no one can revive you. It’s brutal, but you might end up coming away with better loot because you can sneak through UESC troops and extract with high-value weapons.
As a team, you can be revived at any time. Even when downed and left as an empty box because the Runner who killed you took all your loot, your teammates can return to revive you. Sometimes, this leads to their deaths, but it can also be the most thrilling part of a run. I always stick around just in case I’m revived, and will always go back for a downed Shell because it raises the stakes of every run so much.
With contracts, however, comes Marathon‘s biggest problem in my eyes. Some faction contracts are the same for everyone. You’ll get to a point where the faction’s contracts end, and you must complete more generic ones to unlock a higher rank and more faction-specific contracts, but many are the same.
These specific contracts are easy to predict, and I found objectives being camped. This made for the very worst time I had in the game, and it sucked. It really was the pits, and I was ready to give up. Persevere, though, and you’ll come out on top with a contract completion.
I think this is a glaringly obvious problem that Bungie could have nipped in the bud by having randomized contracts. Keep some as faction-specific, but randomize when they appear so it’s less painful to progress in early ranks for Nu Caloric and a few others.
What makes it particularly annoying is that this is the main way the story is doled out in Marathon. I’m desperate to see more, but it takes a long time to get through every contract, especially those that require extraction. I know I’m beating a dead horse, but some sort of single-player wouldn’t have gone amiss for those who want a few dedicated narrative hours.
Right, back to progression. So, while you’re earning seasonal experience and faction upgrades, ranks, and Credits, you’re also building up your vault. This is where you keep all your loot, and you’ll quickly reach the point when you must sell some goodies to make room for better bits and pieces.
This is essential because you can’t run Cryo Archive without an inventory worth 5,000 or more Credits. I see this as the final reason to always do a few runs in Marathon before bed. If you extract with some decent weapons, that’s progress for your Cryo Archive runs, but if not, you might earn credits or experience to unlock something juicy in the seasonal inventory and still make progress.
The Artificial Cryo Archive Issue
I have a big problem with the way Bungie is treating Cryo Archive. First, it was released as a weekend-only activity, which made it rather difficult to access as a dad of three who is always knackered after spending weekend days with his kids. Bungie then moved it to run from Thursday to Sunday, which is still honestly not great because it’s a purely artificial restriction.
Why, when we are a digital mind able to jump into Shells with abilities built by bio-organic caterpillars so we can pick up guns and sell them to shady corporations four or so light-years away, can we only access a broken colony ship four out of seven days of the week?
In my opinion, this is an effort from Bungie to do what it did with Destiny 2 and create a player count boost once per week. It’s all about player numbers and showing Sony that people are still playing by averaging out the weekly player numbers with that boost from Cryo Archive. I worked for a company where my boss once did this with weekend traffic for the website we were writing for in the past. It felt shady then, but with Marathon, it just feels like I’m being used as currency.
Despite that doom and gloom opinion, I think it fits the vibe of the game’s universe. The colonists of the Marathon were nothing but numbers to the corporations funding the ship, so, in a way, this helps with immersion.
Moving away from the completely ridiculous and pretty harmful choice to restrict access to Cryo Archive, the map itself is exhilarating. Enemies are plentiful, and because you’ve always got decent gear, it feels like a proper hardcore shooter mission.
Understanding the mechanics of the map takes time, but that’s all part of the game. I can see Bungie adding more maps from the Marathon with light puzzles to solve within the time limit that are just as fun to play.
We’re in the best stage of a game like this, when players who know what they’re doing guide newcomers or those who are unsure through it. As more maps are added, this will shift to the latest one, but that’s fine as long as Bungie keeps its promise.
That promise is one of ongoing content. Marathon has no end right now other than the current season and the potential start of a new one in the coming weeks. Should Bungie fail to deliver, it’ll kill the momentum and potentially the game. I adore what I’ve played so far, but I know it’s just the beginning, and I can’t wait to see where it all goes.
To be brutally honest with you, that really is where we’re at with this game. We’ve got to wait and see if, in an era of unprecedented live-service game closures, one of the biggest publishers and platform holders on the planet will keep Marathon going for longer than its inaugural season.
I see no reason why it shouldn’t, though. The gunplay is superb, enemies are hard to kill but fair, and each Shell has enough varied abilities to keep you busy for at least 100 hours. If you’re looking for an extraction shooter that you’ll definitely get the time out of for the money, this is very much it.
What Bungie has created is the right balance of progression and moment-to-moment excitement that maintains your interest with every run. It’s even removed the disappointment of losing everything if you don’t extract with the offer of free loadouts that allow you to continue throwing yourself at Tau Ceti IV and earn a bit more experience, even if you come away with precious little else.
Final Score – Unnumbered
Marathon makes you feel mad at times, but on the whole, it’s a fantastic shooter that leans wholly into the extraction genre and emerges from its own mysterious world unscathed by the horrors of that genre. It’s the start of something that could be great if the ongoing support that follows values players over profits. While the various corporations of the in-game world would string players up and drain their blood for cash if they could, Bungie would be remiss to do the same with microtransactions and should instead continue as it has started.
A Thought On Marathon‘s Release
I don’t want this to come off as aggressive, but I’m annoyed about Marathon‘s launch. Reviewers were asked to wait until the release of Cryo Archive, which took players three weeks to unlock, before publishing their reviews.
I’ve no problem with this, but what annoys me is that the game’s accolades trailer, the video showcasing its review scores, was put together and published to a deadline that preceded the release of the very endgame content reviewers were asked to wait for. While those scores aren’t unfair, and many are reviews-in-progress, it didn’t, and still doesn’t sit right with me that what is effectively an advertisement for the game went against the very thing Bungie requested of reviewers.
It speaks to a lack of faith in the game on either the developer’s or Sony’s part, and overall feels underhanded and designed to avoid potential downgrades in score once the endgame had been released. I’m glad I waited for Cryo Archive because I feel it improves the game, but this whole process has damaged my opinion of Sony and Bungie.
**Bonus Action was provided with a PlayStation 5 copy of Marathon for the purpose of this review**
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