Marathon is out in less than six months and there’s still a lot we don’t know about it. But thanks to the current closed alpha, we’ve had a chance to finally go hands-on with Bungie’s first new project in over a decade and the latest live-service game coming out of the PlayStation portfolio. The results so far have left us scratching out heads.
Right now at least, Marathon is a fascinating sci-fi premise wrapped up in a pretty familiar and somewhat forgettable extraction shooter facsimile. The alpha was originally going to be NDA’d but Bungie ended up lifting that requirement after many content creators balked at the provision. And while there’s definitely still plenty of polish to be added to the look of Marathon’s world, its UI, and other visual elements, things seem to be running well under the hood. No real bugs, no real performance issues on PlayStation 5, and no problems matchmaking or staying connected.
But while the moment-to-moment gameplay in Marathon can be solid, the alpha left us with a bunch of questions about how Bungie’s new shooter can succeed and what will set it apart in an ever-more-crowded field of established alternatives.
Ethan Gach: Still waters run deep. Can we say the same about Marathon?
Zack Zwiezen: You can only answer that if you got an alpha code. Which both of us did. And while I don’t have an answer for your smarty-pants philosophical question, I do have thoughts on Marathon! Not all of them positive.
I spent a lot of my time playing and then thinking about this game and going “Hmmm…”
EG: It’s in a very weird spot! At least what’s playable in the alpha—two maps, four runners, and a couple of contracts.
As someone with a need to watch XP and faction rep meters fill up, I felt surprisingly un-obsessed with Marathon after playing a couple hours (the game has some of that stuff but it wasn’t enough to overcome my ennui). Still, the conundrum of what Marathon may or may not end up being is something my mind keeps coming back to.
ZZ: Yeah. After a few hours of playing Marathon’s alpha—which as you mention is not the full game—I’m not really hungry to hop back in. And I’m also not sure who this game is actually for…
The alpha feels too watered-down to attract the extraction sickos who have 2000 hours in Tarkov. But it still feels like it’s going to be too punishing to attract casual Destiny players and battle royale fans.
I saw someone, can’t remember who, tweet that the game is like Apex Legends: But Now You Lose Everything When You Die Edition and that’s not completely fair, but not that far off either.
EG: The pitch for this game is something like, “What if the extraction mode from a free-to-play Call of Duty game played like Destiny 2 and was priced somewhere in the middle?” And when you say it like that it’s hard to get excited, but moment-to-moment the gunplay is on point and the art direction and world itself have me very intrigued.
ZZ: On paper that pitch is really a hard sell. And trying to convince some friends to play this has been a struggle.
But yeah, the gunplay feels really, really good. At one point I was fighting some NPC bots in a trippy sci-fi warehouse with weird lights and it was awesome. Then I had to rummage through their loot for some items and got killed by a player seconds later and lost everything.
The problem was that I ended up just thinking, “Man, I wish this wasn’t an extraction shooter that forced me to play with randos to survive!” Which I doubt is what Bungie was going for with the alpha.
EG: Tell me more about why losing loot is such a buzzkill for you. It’s definitely something I think will be polarizing for certain types of Bungie fans but it doesn’t bother me personally.
ZZ: I think the problem is that, as you mentioned, there’s not enough (in the Alpha at least) other STUFF to work toward.
So if you drop in with a cool gun you successfully extracted with but you get insta-killed by some rando with a sniper, it feels bad. I made no progress on in-game challenges, because they aren’t a thing (and don’t seem to be a thing in the full game) and I didn’t complete any contracts. And that cool gun and everything else is gone. And if that happens a few too many times, it feels really punishing.
And like, in Fortnite, even bad matches don’t really punish me that much. I don’t lose anything and I’m always making progress on like 200 different challenges and my battle passes.
But with Marathon (and other extraction shooters) you can have a run of bad matches that just feels awful. And I’m not sure, without some big changes, that Bungie is going to get a Destiny-size community to support Marathon.
EG: For a game about grabbing loot, that part was definitely the least exciting to me. I think that’s partly about the narrow scope of what’s available in the alpha but also partly an issue with how anti-climactic the flow and drama of matches feel.
Showdowns with other players were very few and far between, and usually ended before both sides could fully engage. The loot caches all sort of run together in my mind, and there was a surprising lack of interesting enemies.
Occasionally there’d be an invisible security unit or beefier elite but I experienced very little in the way of big moments like, “oh, we found great loot!” or “oh, we’re in a mini-boss fight!” or “now we’re in a shootout to get to the extraction point.” None of that really “popped” for me.
ZZ: Matches tended to blend together for me. I don’t really have many “COOL STORY” moments to share. And yeah, combat with other players is pretty rare and tends to be the worst part of this game.
I feel like the time-to-kill is so short in this that I could drop people with anything and they, in turn, could do the same to me. So fights weren’t about who had found some cool gear or had a smart spot, but just “Who spotted who first and pulled the trigger?”
It led to a situation where I started to get annoyed and bored with NPC bot fights and would just get a few cool items/guns and extract. But then, I started to wonder why I was even looting guns if I was mostly avoiding or dreading combat with NPCS and rarely saw other players or felt like my guns mattered.
EG: I was, frankly, shocked how little we ran into human opponents while playing. The max map capacity is currently 18 teams of three players. I’m not sure if that’s a tech limitation or calibrated to limit chaos but something is off about the density of “things to do” on the map right now.
It feels like there needs to be a lot more AI enemies, or the matches need to be shorter and that threat needs to ramp up more quickly. I can imagine much more exciting scenarios where players are too busy trying to survive to really stab one another in the back at the end of a round, but as it stands the matches didn’t follow any memorable arcs.
That’s not to say they’re boring moment-to-moment, because you are constantly on the lookout for threats and optimal routes, high ground, good cover, loot, etc. But there’s a glaring hole at the center of what’s in the alpha right now.
ZZ: I do think, as I realized how safe I usually was in most areas, I did get a bit bored of it after a few hours.
But I wonder if the number of players is directly tied to the size of the maps, which aren’t massive. And yeah, I agree. I was shocked by how much of the game was me running around the map collecting random sci-fi gear while never seeing other players.
Speaking of the maps, neither of them are great! And I’m not talking about the rough-looking outdoor areas. (Which I assume will get a few more passes before September’s launch.)
Both maps in the alpha lack any memorable regions or interesting landmarks. It’s just a collection of a lot of the same-looking assets spread around an area in a maze-like fashion. Nothing remarkable.
EG: It’s ironic that you spend the game playing as synthetic “shells” that are printed anew each time you die because I can totally imagine a really fun, compelling PVP experience inside the “shell” of what Marathon appears to be at the moment. Based on what we’ve heard about the final game, though, I’m not sure there will be enough bold design swings or interesting ideas to make it feel alive.
I can’t tell you what Bungie should do but I can tell you a few things are missing right now. The recipe’s a bit bland, like a pizza cooked to perfection but the sauce is too thin and the crust tastes like water.
ZZ: Do you think this game comes out in September as planned? Because based on the negative or middling reactions I’m seeing online, I’m wondering what the vibes are inside Bungie and if there is any possibility that this thing gets delayed until 2026 so they can make some bigger changes. So they can spice up the pizza and add more toppings.
EG: I don’t think it comes out. And if it does, it will be because Sony doesn’t believe in it and is ready to move on. I think there will be a public beta around July or so and based on the level of participation and buzz coming out of that, a call will be made then.
But I hope I’m wrong and it comes together in the final product because I truly do love the lore and vibes. I very much want a reason to exist in that world and see where it goes in a way that I did not with Concord.
ZZ: Same! I want this game to succeed. And like you said, there’s good stuff in here. I think Bungie, given a bit more time, could tinker with what is here and end up with something that blows up and becomes a big hit. And I want to see that happen.
But I’m not convinced, after playing the alpha, that Marathon is going to succeed. I hope I’m wrong, if only so we keep getting more awesome short movies like that last one.
Ultimately, I think they need to make a decision. Is this going to be a fairly punishing hardcore extraction shooter or something that is designed to appeal to more players from more genres? And perhaps this is a debate raging internally at the studio and was part of the reason the NDA was lifted. Maybe they want to see what the reaction is, and different sides can use the online conversations to plead their case.
For now, I’ll probably play more of the alpha. See if it clicks more with me. How about you?
EG: I’ll definitely hop on a few more times and continue hunting for the magic. It’s by no means bad and it certainly feels better to play than some other extraction shooters.
There’s a lot that’s not in the alpha, so I don’t want to make up my mind too early based on just the roughest proof of concept. And because I’m a sicko I will definitely max out any ranks I can.
ZZ: Same. The shooty-shooty bits are fun enough and the world is neat. I hope it all comes together in the end.
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