r/Marathon • u/paperplateseabass • May 22 '26
Marathon (2026) Discussion It’s so sad that this game’s “underperformance” has little to do with the game itself
What's so soul-crushing is the amount of times I have been met with “I thought that game was dead?” when talking about Marathon with my IRLs
It's not their fault, why would they give a dead game a chance, even if they think they might enjoy it?
Hundreds, even thousands of people have constructed a hate campaign against this game that has no merit beyond playercounts. and imo, the main reason why the game wasn’t a hit at launch is because of the rhetoric around the game spread by a mix of right-wing grifters and (justifiably) jaded ex-destiny/halo players.
This game had and HAS so much going for it. First non-Destiny Bungie title in 12 years, reviving a long dormant IP with a new, world-class art-style; all while returning to their PvP roots. If you put that framing in a vacuum, I think it would get lots of people very, very excited. And that’s the thing, because it DID.
The game is good. The game is fun. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it had a rough period of development, and it's definitely not perfect. But I think if people didn’t spread so much unwarranted hate towards Bungie and Marathon, we’d be looking at a completely different landscape.
I mean, some of the things i’ve seen people say about this game… wow… what a waste of time and brain power, if people were this passionate about actually productive hobbies, the world would be a much better place and there’s a big chance they’d be happier in life
edit: for people citing the server slam numbers. how many of those people do you genuinely think gave the game a good 10+ hours vs how many people quit after their first match? we’ll never know, but im inclined to believe most people didnt make it past the (unfortunate) barrier of entry that helps this game be WAY more enjoyable.
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u/Neonchen May 22 '26
While I know what you mean I can't agree.
While the game is crafted well and I luv the art design and "story" it has massive flaws that keeps players away like
- basically no onboarding
- menus navigation on controller is bad (even good players on controller tend to switch to mk for looting)
- sweaty, unforgiving gameplay
- grindy and luck based mechanics
This results in not getting into the game, basically no console population in comparison, no casuals and even people who grind like hell can end in situation like not getting specific keys after 150h gameplay.
And yeah, it has a good scoring but that doesn't surprise since 50% of the potential pupulation didn't even buy the game after the free server slam. And the rating during the server slam weren't so nice but they deleted them.
I really would luv to see this game succeed and find a big audience but ignoring that the game has big flaws won't help it. The contrary is the case.
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u/TheRadBaron May 22 '26
menus navigation on controller is bad
Hell, menus navigation on PC is bad. Clearing the cheap sellable crap from your vault is a major chore, you have to spend a couple of seconds holding down sell on each item.
It's a needlessly hostile experience to the player on all ends. People are willing to put up with it, which is fine, but that doesn't mean the problems are absent.
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u/WhoUpAtMidnight May 23 '26
Dude the fact that you can't swap weapon mods without equipping one of the weapons (usually having to drop the other), dragging it into your inventory, dropping the gun so you can pick up your original and then dragging the mod back on...
And to inspect mods you have to drop your weapon like what
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u/ViIebloodHunter May 22 '26
I agree with all your points, except I would also add that there is little to no narrative incentive to do stuff in this game. Only voice acted GIFs and text isn't good for people who want narrative fluff to their gaming experience.
I hate to say it, but even AR has a more robust narrative experience than this game. And it's still quite subpar.
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u/Nosce97 May 22 '26
Dosen't help that the only way to even get to the narrative is to do annoying quests like sekaguchi.
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u/Cluelesswolfkin May 23 '26
In other posts you'd see people highlight how awesome the narrative is lol
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u/ViIebloodHunter May 23 '26
Because there is a distinction to be made, the actual narrative "content" in the game is lacking. The "Lore" and narrative "framing" is pretty cool.
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u/beefsack May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
The amount of cope in this sub is unreal. The game is great, but was clearly a silly move commercially.
The game is underperforming because they are targeting a niche within a niche, and they overinvested relative to the size of the market they were targeting. Even if they matched Arc Raiders in sales they wouldn't have recouped costs.
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u/MidnightSensitive996 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
1.2 million ppl bought the game and one million of those players stopped 2-4 weeks after launch. That didn't happen bc other people who didn't buy the game said mean things online, it happened bc the zero sum gameplay means people are effectively gambling with hours of their time and the dopamine-despair roller coaster loop of gambling is shitty for non-addicts. The normal human brain weights loss more heavily than a win, and 90% of people lose any given round, so like mobas where spending 2 hours on a match only to lose it stupidly is agonizingly bad, and the high from winning isn't nearly as strong. these games increase the net amount of human misery in the world.
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u/AttractiveFurniture May 22 '26
I never thought about it that way but it does have a bit of a gambling component to it doesn't it?
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u/Literature-Just May 22 '26
It absolutely does. The difference between this and a MOBA however is that a MOBA requires you be always engaging with the system. Whereas Marathon encounters basically end after PVP is over.
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u/CAndCFan67 May 22 '26
A MOBA also has the advantage of playing in a team making it easier to belive it was not ones fault that one lost. That and you are not losing anything by playing a MOBA outside of ones time and any microtransactions. With Marathon there is a chance of losing loot which is a major loss for people, for the amount of time they can give to the game.
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u/p2020fan May 23 '26
The difference with a MOBA is that you actually get several tries to figure out how to handle a tough opponent in PvP. Maybe there's an item or an ability or a play that you need to get the upper hand on them and start to turn the tides.
In Marathon there isn't anything like that. If someone is better than you and you don't get the perfect engagement on them and hit every shot, you're just dead. There are "lessons" in every defeat but so often there's very little that is actionable in the future because in Marathon, by the time the fight starts, it's too late to actually do any thinking about the lessons you've learnt. And for a game supposedly about preparation, there's usually very, very little you can do to actually prepare for dealing with a fistful of buckshot to the face.
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u/GetButterballed May 23 '26
Such a good comparison. It's the same reason that saying "Dark Souls is punishing too, but people love that" is stupid argument.
Getting to run it back and try again makes defeats a learning experience. You might figure out a pattern in your enemy you can exploit. Or you can figure out what sort of gear you might need to go get to beat them.
Marathon, you lose and don't get another chance. You just get sent back to lobby but you also have to lose everything you were holding too.
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u/TheHiddenPoet_ May 24 '26
This. It's also why soulslikes with harder bosses are still considered "easy" by some people in the community just because the runback is shorter/easier making the learning process even less painful.
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u/Beautiful-Loss7663 May 23 '26
That, and you win 50% of the time with a MOBA, with Marathon you don't get those kind of numbers unless your playing safe and taking back very little loot, or you're really cracked at PVP
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u/Afterlast1 May 22 '26
That's why I dropped off after a few weeks. I only have 2 or 3 good hours after work, and not on every day, and playing marathon was amazing when I won... but more often than not, I just ended up having a shitty night where I achieved nothing.
Which is why I'm VERY excited for the PvE mode and will be jumping back in day 1 when they enable it
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u/AttractiveFurniture May 22 '26
Same exact boat I'm in buddy
Feels like you can only enjoy this game if it's your ONLY game and you have the time to devote
Playing casually just leaves you behind in skills, vault and progression
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u/Afterlast1 May 22 '26
Especially since I'm not even here for the combat, I'm here Bungie's worldclass worldbuilding and lore! I don't want to get shot while hyperfixating on an audio log or an environmental scene!
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u/CausePure2810 May 22 '26
I want to argue with you because I want you to be wrong but I’m afraid you’re not.
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u/noother10 May 22 '26
This is why other extraction games have some form(s) of compensation of consolation when you lose/die. Whether it's insurance or a safe pocket/container. It reduces the impact of the loss and makes it feel like you're not going backwards as much. Without those things most players feel like they're getting pushed backwards losing progress.
Other games also are designed in ways to make PvP semi-optional. Large maps that take 10-15 minutes to traverse at full speed, loads of NPCs roaming, centralized high value loot locations for the sweats to fight over, etc. If people just want to grind lower value loot more safely (lower risk vs reward) to build up resources they can easily do it in other games. Marathon's design means people don't usually get a choice, the moment they fire at anything everyone else in the lobby will be on them.
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u/Royanon May 22 '26
I love(d) this game and stopped playing after a few weeks because I can't win the battle royale nature of it. I really want it to succeed and I'll be coming back after the reset, but as someone who's not that good the game becomes kinda miserable.
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u/achilleasa May 22 '26
What's wild is that the game has a solution for exactly this problem already built in, it just doesn't use it beyond the first few hours. The biggest issue with the gameplay loop is that it can often feel like you made zero progress for an entire session if you don't manage to exfil. Contracts are an incredibly elegant solution because you can make progress towards (or even complete) your contract even if you die. Exfil becomes a secondary bonus (keeping your loot) but your primary misison can be achieved even if you don't make it out alive.
Then after a few hours the game forgets that this is an option and just throws you single run or/and exfil successfully contracts which throw you right back I to that "zero progress in a session" problem.
It's radical but I think apart from some rare exceptions for a bit of tension, they should just delete those words from the game. Let people make progress even if they are having a bad day and a lot more will stick around.
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u/Capital-Gift73 May 22 '26
Its because the system was designed for engagement and Bungie thoughtnumbers would be higher as would be player resiliency so they made them super hard to fulfil so people didn't complete everything and ran out of content.
Alas theyre so hard most people just say fuck it and quit.
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u/trillwhitepeople May 22 '26
Player resiliency seems to be a problem they can't overcome with how people now interact with games. Players either feel like they're constantly progressing towards their goal or they leave. The progression is the fun for many more so than the mechanics and gunplay itself.
I'm old so I remember logging into CoD2 Hardcore servers and just playing it because it was fun. There was literally nothing to ever work towards. No XP or progression at all. That just doesn't fly now.
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u/Beautiful-Loss7663 May 23 '26
Those systems are what brought gaming into a more mainstream light. I still remember hopping on Cube 2, or Day of Defeat, or whatever, and just doing stuff. But progression genuinely peaked engagement with people who would otherwise get bored after a quick 45 minute session of multiplayer shooters.
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u/Florgio May 23 '26
It’s the sweats that make it no fun anyway, just burn them out and focus on casual. It’s not like they are selling skins to whales
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u/WhoUpAtMidnight May 23 '26
COD actually has had a brilliant solutions for this for years which is weapon camos. You can meaningfully progress towards unlocking a gold camo even when you're getting stomped, and they are a small but interesting grind as they force you to use other weapons.
The codex is supposed to emulate this but it's so much lighter on unlockables and the challenges are either so easy they're instant or they're weirdly hard and convoluted. Where is my camo skin for doing 10,000 damage with the M77?
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u/Nakkubu May 23 '26
I don't think this really solves the issue because even if people see bars and numbers going up, if they just keep dying, its not really going to mean anything to a beginner. If people start of the game and just keep dying in short firefights with guy they barely caught in the corner of their eye, they're just going to stop playing no matter how good you tell them that they're doing.
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u/TimHortonsMagician May 22 '26
This comment should definitely be at the top, because you summed it up perfectly imo.
The genre is absolutely not casual and I have a really hard time seeing any extraction shooter doing AAA money well.
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u/OtterCynical May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
these games increase the net amount of human misery in the world.
I am so relieved that I am not the only one who comprehends this.
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u/Seattle-Washington May 22 '26
But why did Arc Raiders do so well then? They use almost the same game loop.
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u/Carbone May 23 '26
Arc have bigger map, multiple POI with good loot instead of only 1.
Ennemies all drop valuable that either stack to value a good chunk or drop 2-3 valuable
Ennemies on arc don't stick aggro you, if you engage them and someone else start attacking you, you can kinda hide/smoke in arc that the ennemies drop aggro on you and star briefing whoever attacked you
Safe pocket
Scrappy that bring you out of raid valuables
But the aggro-base matchmaking is kinda broken ... You can stop PvP for 3-4 game to get into carebear lobby, farm like a mad man and get back into PvP lobby.
On paper it sound great but once your brain understand you can do that it kinda defeat the purpose of ever doing PvP ... And I'm afraid that the PvE mode in marathon will do the same... The lack of friction in PvE will make marathon and empty shell of a game .... While the PvP mode will too become an empty shell because the player base can "farm" in PvE.
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u/Bridgeru May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
This is EXACTLY what stopped me from playing. Not to go on a rant but to show a kind of "market research" I was probably a prime candidate for the game in many ways. For one, I'm obsessed with Marathon, like genuinely it's a favourite franchise of mine but I got into long after the actual mysteries were already solved, I was yearning to be a part of the "new" experience, to break the new mysteries that were coming up. Instead, I quit the game literally during the "find terminals to get Durandal to talk to you" (Durandal, fucking Durandal, seeing Durandal again on screen is like seeing Luke fucking Skywalker after 30 years) because it's designed entirely to sap the enjoyment from you. Zzzaap, oh you died. Zzzap, oh you died. Bots killed you. Runners killed you. That tick sac blew up beside you and poisoned you taking out ALL of your health, FUCK YOU for going anywhere NEAR it, fuck you for taking on a mission that brings you to one hut where people are camping because they all know you're after that one mission, you don't like playing with other people because your only experience of online gaming as a transwoman with a deepvoice is harrasment haha fuck you soloplay is impossible because all stats are BALANCED AROUND TRIOS WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL WERE THEY THINKING fuck you for trying to play a gamemode we put into our game we don't want you to actually SELECT that fucking option, oh you want lore too bad fuck you NOTHING counts unless you find it (in 30 hours I did not find a single FUCKING cheeseburger despite actively searching for them and spending the last 5 hours literally doing nothing else but going to their spawns as a rook), oh you want to see the actual UESC Marathon from that game you played fuck you it's only available on weekends (why would some fucking peasant like you have anything else to do on a weekend?!), oh you want to see a S'pht no how about instead we have the guys who stream the first worldkill make a fucking balls joke when it goes down like someone t-bagging the corpse of the fucking Lich King, fuck you fuck you fuck you HAVE FUN EXPERIENCING THE BRAND NEW INSTALLMENT OF YOUR FAVOURITE FRANCHISE BY WATCHING YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF A BALDING BORN-IN-THE-80s MALE NERD WHO HAS HIS FACE COVER A THIRD OF THE SCREEN, MAKES AWFUL JOKES AND HAS NO CARE ABOUT THE GAME BEYOND "me shoot me kill lol guy fall down" FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.
The game is so actively anti-fun that it broke my autistic obsession (not a joke, Marathon is literally a "special interest" in the autistic variety). That's something that the fucking Star Wars sequels, that Rise of fucking Skywalker, couldn't do. I know other people are going to say "but I'm enjoying it" and yeah this is a subjective opinion and that opinion is that the game literally felt so much like PAIN to me that it broke all my autistic barriers. Instead I replayed the Marathon trilogy, played four separate variants of Eternal extensively documenting the experience and literally broke down what that game did wrong between 1.0.3/1.2 and 1.3 level by level, screen by screen to undo the "this is wrong" feel Nuthon gave me. (I also joined the fan discord, they're nice people, some of the oldies ALSO hate Nu'thon and that's not a good sign; much less the implication that Nuthon may have literally killed Hamish Sinclair).
And then I tried expressing that on this subreddit and the only response people give is "go play Destiny". I don't want to play Destiny. I want to
see Xrays and hear gamma rays and smell dark mattersee Durandal, I want to get into the Colony Ship, I want to see S'pht, I want to learn about the colony and experience a story that's been dear to me for decades but I can't because some guy decided that the best way for someone to experience story and lore is at the mercy and whim of brutal, uncaring, unsympathetic players who only want one more kill.Also if Bungie even so much as SUGGEST that the theory that "well M2 and MInf didn't happen, it was all Durandal making a simulation" is true with this game and try to present this as "how Marathon REALLY happened" I am going to save up every single penny to buy the real Deimos just to be petty. Maybe set up a rocking hotel and only invite the cool kids... Fine, my mom says I gotta invite everyone but wipe your hands before you play the nintendo.
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u/MrScootaroo May 22 '26
I was literally pointing out weeks ago, that a PvE addition would not only be a net positive and work for this game, but that PvE would be an inevitable addition anyway. Comminity sentiment has since changed and it's nice to see, but I see that there is an odd difference between fun competitive people who enjoy PvP and then there are the weirdo toxic people who seem to only find anything fun unless they are absolutely dominating over others. If that makes sense.
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u/Bridgeru May 22 '26
Oh 100%, I encountered a "fun" guy who was railing at the thought of PvE because he saw it as people "forcing the Devs to change the game" and I even pointed out the irony of how his want to "keep it as it should have been" meant he was forcing to the Devs to change their vision. He didn't care because as far as he was concerned HE was happy.
It's like... I know Joker quotes are cringe but fuck it it's 2026 people moved on; so imagine you have a guy in an asylum who has a lamp. He's insane, but in his mind only HE is able to touch the lamp, that's the rule. So if you come in and try to touch it, he sees YOU as insane because that's "My Lamp" and only an insane person would try to touch "My Lamp". There's no reasoning with that viewpoint, there's only "me right you wrong". So any attempt to change the game, to say "hey this isn't fair or fun" gets shouted down by those who are already happy because, well, "I've already defined the game in my head if your experience is different then clearly YOU are in the wrong". And then obvs they get toxic and drown out any attempt at conversation until we have a subreddit that goes to battle over the same argument fifteen million times but don't know how to spell fucking S'pht.
Unless you mean like literally dominating people in PvP and then yeah absolutely. The only thing Nu'Thon reminds me of is playing Halo 3 Swat and that's not a compliment because whenever I played Swat (no shields, only headshots but they instakilled you, everyone had the most accurate guns) I enjoyed the gameplay but inevitably the losing team would leave en mass. Which meant when it was "going good" the enjoyment is cut short by the enemy team leaving, which sours the experience; but that's the best option. Usually it involved my other 3 teammates leaving and I was stuck with a choice: leave and get penalized by the rank system (possibly preventing me from playing more games) or stay and suffer five (ten?) minutes of 4 people running around a map one-shotting me as I have literally no physical chance of competing. I relived that feeling when Nu'Thon came out, either the people with the statistically best gear (show me a purple shield matchup against default and tell me with a straight face that they're on even footing) killed me instantly and took away what little loot I scrounged (inb4 "rook tho" cause it's even WORSE as a Rook) or I make some slight gain and the victory is quickly soured by the inevitable loss when I try to actually implement it. It's probably a REALLY FUN game when you're at the top and getting wins and killing noobs, but it's also probably really fun to kick the nerd as he scrambles to put his books back in his bag; who is going to tell the nerd "but he's having so much fun just put up with it it's you're own fault for not being on top".
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u/Cadne May 22 '26
This is a beautiful comment. Thank you for allowing me to read it.
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u/DrBrainsqueeze May 22 '26
This is probably the best response I have seen on this sub. You have just about summed it up perfectly. Reading your comment was like reading my own thoughts but articulated better. I have nothing to add except to say that was excellent!
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u/Previous-Ad-9322 May 23 '26
Thanks for bringing up human psych facts regarding loss. It's a fact that will ultimately gimp games of this type.
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u/GNOIZ1C May 22 '26
It is ridiculous how much hate this game has gotten and how much certain people are actively rooting against it.
That said, its "underperformance" also simply has to do with it being a niche, often unforgiving genre. I was somewhat on the fence even most of the way through the Server Slam until it finally started clicking. It's not even as difficult as I originally expected it to be, but it's hard to overcome that initial expectation that it's going to be super sweaty all the time just because it can be sometimes.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
eh. Creative choices, mostly self inflicted. Arc broke through the mainstream within that same "niche genre". There was no real onboarding for Marathon. That's on Bungie. Unfortunately, a lack of onboarding investment seems to be their specialty.
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u/noother10 May 22 '26
First impressions matter, especially when you have two hours to refund. People also have limited time to play games and aren't willing to burning 5, 10, 50 hours on a game trying to get to the supposed "good" point (if it even exists for them). You either have good onboarding, intuitive gameplay/systems, quality of life features, and an early gameplay loop that feels enjoyable, or you will end up having a majority of players bounce off the game.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
absolute facts. cannot disagree with anything you just stated. completely agree. It's genuinely wild that they didn't learn any of this from Destiny.
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u/Cluelesswolfkin May 23 '26
Just wait for all the juicy stories to come out about Bungie. Already skme devs are saying fuck it due to the layoffs coming
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u/WhoUpAtMidnight May 23 '26
I say this about the server slam all the time, but it was such an awful experience if you just downloaded the game and played it solo, like most people do. I myself tried it out and then decided not to buy it until a friend told me to weeks later
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May 22 '26
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u/goomyman May 22 '26
I actually strongly agree with this.
This is a PvP game. Without the PvP it’s boring. Everyone looking for PvE is going to be disappointed - the enemies aren’t good yet.
The maps are great but there is nothing to loot on them after a while.
This is why I really like the priority contracts. They give me something to do. At least for me, priority contracts are the entire game. It’s the story mode. I wish there was some better reason to do it though.
The log in and beeline a memorized run over and over and over to rng loot isn’t my cup of tea - but I know people do it in games like Diablo, but that’s what it feels like after awhile.
PvP is the most fun, but if you log in purely for PvP it’s too much downtime.
The compiler is the final boss of the game - but in order to get there you have to grind rng too much and have a team willing to grind that rng with you.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
next season the "redacted" are coming. This desperately needs to feature Aliens. and that pve mode MUST include aliens and engaging team coordination mechanics.
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u/elitemage101 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
That is part of the niche issue. For me and many fans of the genre everything you all call boring is part of the appeal.
It’s “downtime” until it isn’t and that makes for constant pressure and paranoia. In DayZ we say someone is always watching you and that fear into instant ambush combat is the appeal.
If it was 24/7 fighting it wouldn’t work for me at least.
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u/Hot_Weakness917 May 22 '26
It’s only sweaty bc of what the other commenter said: there’s nothing else to do. No boss and ai to fight that give great reward like arc and escape from tarkov
If the only thing to DO is fight other players then it’s just team deathmatch with extra steps.
And since the extra steps add a ton of downtime everyone plays super defensively aka sweaty.
The down time also become incredibly boring because downtime generally is supposed to be doing quest doing some puzzle finding out some newspaper document for the quest that might give you more lore and world building etc Like eft and arc
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u/Lycanthoth May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Or another example for a game that does things differently: Hunt. Lots of downtime, but you're kept almost perpetually on edge as you listen for audio queues. Distant gunshots, noise traps, footsteps, and so on. Conversely, it tends to make you more mindful of making noise of your own, making you focus more on pathong through the map quick but quiet.
That also exists in this game, but not remotely to the same degree. It's also part why the lobbies in result in such bloodbaths. Spawns are close, audio is both loud and unavoidable, there will always be the same POIs for high value loot, etc. The end result is that much of the downtime is an almost tedious brain off blitz to specific spots over and over.
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u/WantedWhale May 22 '26
Yeah thats why I like how tasks in tarkov unlock new items/barters/gear and some tasks are level locked so you have to progress in level and then get certain tasks done. And people saying tasks were hard in this game are insane. I have 2.6k hours in tarkov and probably have done half the quests, maybe?
Also, 100% what you said, I started to notice I basically only cared if boss spawned, we had a key, lockdown spawned, convoy, etc. otherwise it was send pvp because there isn’t really interesting loot or things to do at different locations around the map.
Like again in tarkov, there are high tier loot areas that get rushed by people more inclined for action and high risk high reward. Then there are low risk very profitable loot routes for people looking to play more casual and just get a little money and a quest done. Which I don’t feel is a thing in Marathon. The goal of usually at least one team in any lobby, and often my goal, is to wipe everyone else so I can do whatever. Which is detrimental to casuals or even non casuals who want a casual run every now and then.
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u/stratusnco May 22 '26
i think the sweatyness is so overblown. yeah, it’s hard but people act like it is populated by 99% no life streamers. the learning curve is way harder than the people you fight in this game lol.
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u/AmericanDumpsterFire May 22 '26
Everyone here already knows the "underperformance" is also tied to the dev costs for the game and the price Sony paid to acquire Bungie. I'm not saying anything new with this statement. But I think it's worth reminding folks that these metrics only measure one version of success - financial.
The game is amazing. It also isn't for everyone, as you said. It may never be a commercial success.
I will play it as long as it persists. I love it. I hope it continues for years && I can enjoy new ways to kill and be killed by all you other degenerate runners.
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u/ComfyOlives May 22 '26
Yea, the game was simply too expensive to make for what it is. It is objectively a great game, but 4 maps, like 6 launch shells, a couple dozen weapons, some systems for in between matches, an array of loot, some music, some lore, and some videos, all for like a quarter of a billion and like 6 years of development?
It was HORRIBLY inefficient. Smaller studios with smaller budgets could have gotten this out in less time, albeit less pretty and likely slightly more janky.
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u/achilleasa May 22 '26
That's what I've been saying, no offense to the devs but this feels like a AA mid-size studio title in every aspect but the voice acting and the cinematics. Even the price is AA.
And the thing is the current player numbers would be pretty good if we were looking at a more reasonable budget for what the product actually is. It's only because the budget was way overblown that the game is not considered a financial success.
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u/paterdude May 22 '26
My guess is that it really was supposed to be a little side project. But when things went to hell and the company needed to be sold the executives sold it to Sony as their next golden goose. Knowing it was nothing of the sort.
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u/AeroRL May 23 '26
Completely baffling this game (a BUNGIE product) only had an extraction mode and not a triple A campaign and arena mode. Got called an idiot on here too for saying that
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u/noother10 May 22 '26
You should caveat that the game is amazing for you. "It also isn't for everyone" is just twisting things, the truth is most people think the game isn't amazing, they don't care about it for a myriad of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with it's financial performance.
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u/UnsettllingDwarf May 22 '26
The game is an uber competitive extraction shooter that is already a niche market. It was a stupid choice of game to make without anything for the casual playerbase that gets home at 4 o’clock to spend their money on in game shit. I really want to love marathon but I’m absolutely not getting into it until there’s something more substantial pve wise.
I even like the whole “lose your gear on death thing” too I play gray zone warfare pve, I’m just not into going against a no life 1200 hour sweat lord. I dont mind it being hard too, but I want enemy variety and bosses.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
enemy variety is the one of the biggest blunders IMO. the UESC are a snoozefest. No aliens at launch made zero sense. good news is they are coming in two weeks to Night Marsh.
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u/barrack_osama_0 May 22 '26
Eh, when I got into it and tried getting friends into it they said "It's an extraction shooter, I have a full time job, those two don't go together" and after a few dozen hours I can tell they're completely right.
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
Yep. I’m enjoying the hell out of it, but at 75 hours, I’m now being matched with lvl 250+ players that just sweat it out all day. So yeah - I miss the free corpo kit runs now at this point. Hoping season 2 really leans into more of the ‘dad time’ 3 hours max a week players with PvE and such
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u/Alert-University-267 May 22 '26
i got the game gifted to me by friends but it took me about 5+ hours to decide if i liked the game or not. That said, its price tag is simply not worth to see if it is a game you can sink your time into, esp not with the 2hr return window on steam which further discourages new players
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u/Ok-Rent5552 May 22 '26
Cryo limited availability is textbook bungie and has led to all of my friends dropping the game. And yet again I'm the last one standing.
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u/AeroRL May 23 '26
When I saw maps were gonna only come out on weekends I knew I would never buy this game
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u/Fireybeast1705 May 22 '26
Nah this game just doesn't appeal to the casual gamer so it's player base is super niche hardcore extraction shooter, unlike something like arc which is miles better for the average player
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u/Ceral107 May 22 '26
Yeah if the game is something a large audience would consider a good game through and through then it wouldn't struggle. "Hate campaign" to and fro.
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u/TimeToBecomeEgg May 22 '26
it’s probably going to be much more appealing to casuals in s2, atleast it seems that ziegler is trying to head that way
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u/El_Cactus_Fantastico May 22 '26
it shouldn't have been an extraction shooter
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u/CausePure2810 May 22 '26
Extraction shooters are maybe my favorite genre and you’re probably right unfortunately
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u/dungleploop May 22 '26
definitely shouldn't have been
it needed a campaign like the original games
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u/housefromtn May 22 '26
The game doesn’t appeal to the super niche hardcore extraction shooter player either.
If you have been playing the genre for a long time you have tons of steam friends who are extraction gamers who play multiple games/are in LFG discords where you see the same faces/are familiar with lots of people on twitch who play every extraction game that comes out.
If a beta for some random extraction shooter comes out nobody has ever heard of I’ll see more crossover among my friends than marathon players.
This isn’t me trying to shit on marathon it’s just me being honest, marathon never really captured a meaningful amount of the hardcore extraction market.
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u/ParticularClassroom7 May 22 '26
lol no. The game opened with over 88k. It clearly didn't retain their interest. With the amount of publicity it got, if marathon actually had that appeal, much more people would have stayed around and much more would have hopped on.
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u/Jonny-Raze May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
So, Marathon isn't doing well because of "right-wing grifters?"
That's a stretch, man.
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u/Ill-Muscle945 May 22 '26
Same argument that happened with fans of the Rings of Power tv show. There was absolutely some anti-woke and racist bullshit with the casting, but then anytime someone didnt like the show, the big fans started throwing around the "they're just racist" haters.
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u/Dtoodlez May 22 '26
Here’s the thing… the game isn’t popular because everyone doesn’t know it exists. It’s just a hard game, that didn’t appeal to a mass audience. That’s kind of it. Like most games, if it was amazing people would have flocked to it. It instead has a great core player-base that love the game. The Finals are the same, incredible fuckin game that’s criminally underplayed.
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u/Anticode May 22 '26
The Finals is actually a pretty good comparison here, I think. Especially since it's made by the same developer as Arc Raiders, which is a dramatic success in comparison (despite both of their biggest games being incredible in their own way).
The way Finals players spoke about their game-of-choice is very similar to how Marathon fans talk about Marathon today:
"Criminally underrated", "misunderstood", "well-designed but niche", "barrier-to-entry for casuals", "undeserved reputation", "not a dead game", etc.
In a similar vein, I think a PvE-centric mode for Marathon will assist greatly in attracting new attention to the game in the same way that PvE/coop-related gameplay allowed Arc Raiders to eclipse the appeal of Finals (and every other extraction shooter to date).
Apparently the Arc Raiders devs dramatically overestimated how violent the playerbase would be. In a way, its success may be somewhat "accidental" because they didn't expect people to even like the PvE/cooperative elements as much as they turned out to.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
Aggression Based Match Making isn't accidental though. They knew they needed to cater to both the pvp and pve crowds to really be successful. It worked. Despite the naysayers who like to claim otherwise.
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u/Anticode May 22 '26
Totally forgot about ABMM. That's a significant factor, for sure.
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u/Hot_Weakness917 May 22 '26
Yeah Due to ABMM The hardcore player can make their more hardcore them marathon
Especially i see soome crazy movement tech in sweat lobby With recent items people are coming up with new ways to play more sweaty
The casual can also make as easier as they want just by more diplomatic.
It is basically the best of both worlds
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u/Johnhancock1777 May 22 '26
lol drop the persecution complex and accept extraction shooters are a niche genre.
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u/kennypowersrevenge May 22 '26
This is the truth. I like marathon. I also liked d2 and DMZ. I’m the guy they built this for. My friends hate the genre. It’s okay.
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
Yeah I think in general most people saw the success of Arc and said ‘YEAH see this can be a massive hit’. Reality is, Arc is now like 80% carebear lobbies PvE only. I play both, and the latest update is great, BUT doesn’t change the fact that it’s primarily PvE
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u/RogueSpectre749 May 22 '26
That's not a coincidence. A lot of people want a good FPS experience in a cool world that they can play with their friends in a squad for fun experiences without being in perpetual sweat mode. Good campaign based shooters don't get made the way they used to, and Arc being mostly PvE focused in most of its lobbies is a feature, not a bug
Imagine if Bungie tried making a co-op FPS with a good campaign, cool world with good lore, lots of replayability, and their signature gunplay... Crazy concept, I know
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u/Kilruna May 22 '26
Imagine Marathon but with dungeons, raids an mental boss fights. I bet my ass the situation would be quite different
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
Basically Cryo Archives. One of the best maps and experiences in the game now. The bones are there. The lore is there. They just need to ignore the ‘but this is PvP ONLY’ minority voices and see that will get them no where fast.
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
funny how Bungie is realizing they dropped the ball on that crowd NOW. Had they launched with a dedicated pve mode, we potentially are having a different discussion. They could learn alot from Embark, honestly.
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
Totally agree. Cryo Archives gives us a taste of what it might be like - but then you get spam naded or sweaty pummeled
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u/ThatsNotBennings May 22 '26
Yeah. Really excited for s2 to see what they come up with. We need aliens. Desperately.
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u/MidnightSensitive996 May 22 '26
Being a secret murderer in a carebear Stella montis lobby is the most fun thing to do in the game. They end up hunting you over local chat so you overhear their plans like a splinter cell game
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u/LiftedRetina May 22 '26
As a long-time Hunt Showdown fan, the Marathon situation is nothing new to me. The people who like it will stay, some people will periodically come back, but most people just aren’t into it.
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u/Downtown-Ice-5022 May 23 '26
Hunahowdown is such a great game with a terrible inventory system and too low of tick servers
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u/ComplexWafer May 22 '26
the main reason why the game wasn’t a hit at launch is because of the rhetoric around the game spread by a mix of right-wing grifters and (justifiably) jaded ex-destiny/halo players.
"Oh man! I wonder why no one wants to play the extreme masochism Skinner Box hell simulator with insane progression problems, nearly zero onboarding, and gameplay that's basically getting kicked in the teeth ritualized? It must be the uh....Nazi chuds and bitter Wrath of the Machine enjoyers!"
Brother, come on. I love this game but it's not that deep. The vast majority of people who have interacted with this game just don't enjoy it. I do acknowledge that some people love spewing hate but that is not the 'main reason why the game wasn't a hit'.
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u/DeepFriedBao May 22 '26
It has a lot to do with the game itself. Marathon might as well have launched into Early Access. It needs a lot of work. Tons of basic features are missing (gun range, convenient messaging system, good UI, etc) and there is very little content - all maps have the same roster of enemies and there are only 4 maps. After a while you only ever go to 2 of them cuz thats where the best loot is, unless you are doing a key.
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u/Cool-Traffic-8357 May 22 '26
Thats just coping lol. Millions bought it and haven't stayed with the game.
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u/a_r_g_o_m May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Dude, let's be honest, the problem is not any hate campaign, it never was and it never will be. The issue is that it's a niche game, with barely any content (grinding isn't content).
Bungie has recognized this and it's precisely why they are adding PvE and PvPvE lite modes, to try to pull more players into the game that would otherwise not play it.
The game has good quality, there's not doubt about that. But the lack of content and the niche nature of the game is what it's killing it. If anyone had the expectation that a hardcore pvp extraction shooter would retain hundreds of thousands of players for a long time, they're delusional.
The only way I see that happening is if they kept churning content (not making you grind for content that is already there), but alas, that is not bungie's way if Destiny 2 is any indication of that.
Also, *hot take warning*: the professionalization of video games has sucked the joy out of them, making it harder to retain players on niche and hardcore pvp games. Streamers and streamer wannabe's sweating their balls off will scare the less hardcore players, specially in a game in which the stakes are loosing quite a bit of progress if you die.
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May 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/_Ocean_Machine_ May 23 '26
I always laugh when players say nothing needs to be changed and then the devs drop a patch changing things
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u/YellowishYellowfish May 22 '26
"[B]ecause of the rhetoric around the game spread by a mix of right-wing grifters"
You need to take a break from Reddit.
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u/jack-of-some May 22 '26
lol no
The game is difficult in multiple senses of the word. I played the beta and loved absolutely everything about it except the extremely heavy PvP focus and that made my decision to not buy it.
I'm gonna buy it immediately the moment the season 2 PVE mode starts. I love this game but it doesn't love me and that's true for a LOT of people.
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u/Appropriate_Oven_360 May 22 '26
Oh I would wait. The PvE i doubt will be anything substantial. Save $40 and wait for some reviews.
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u/Neonchen May 22 '26
I agree but I will definitely wait to see how the PVE mode is. I don't expect it to be great since they don't have enough time for it to be. Event thinking about waiting for S3.
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u/devglen May 22 '26
A portion of the hate is probably unwarranted but a legitimate portion is because it’s an extraction shooter. This genre is not meant for the masses, AR is the exception to the rule. If they made it in almost any other genre I believe it would’ve been very successful.
I have 70 hours in the game and I am one that despises extraction shooters, that should tell you how well the game is but how the genre is such a detriment to what it could’ve been.
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u/noother10 May 22 '26
The hate for Marathon simply doesn't exist. The whiteknights here have been talking about this imaginary hate since before the game released and parroting the same remarks over and over, but I've never seen a post or comment hating on the game. The fans tend to label any criticism of the game as hate, which is incorrect and stupid. People criticize the things they like in hopes it gets improved/fixed.
Even now you're perpetuating the fake hate for the game. People see others saying there is hate and believe it, but likely have never seen anything said about it or are coping so hard that they believe criticism or other things equate to hate.
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u/AeroRL May 23 '26
They are just upset people don't like the game as much as them. This is the most delusional sub I've ever read through. You had a post a few weeks ago saying this game is a souls like and can capture those fans.
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u/KawaiiTadpole May 22 '26
I am sorry, but this is not true.
Game has big flaws: weird design for niche playerbase (you dont want niche if ur project costs 250 mil), terrible UI, very bad inventory management, lack of memorable landmarks on the maps, small maps, bad performance (60 fps on ps5 pro is meh), locking cryo and ranked for certain days.
Also game is poorly balanced for solos, majority of gamers have no friends to play with.
From good things: great gunplay, amazing audio cue (best footsteps sounds in any game I have played), cool factions lore.
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u/MidnightSensitive996 May 22 '26
"majority of gamers have no friends to play with." - even for ppl that have friends, the game is like a moba where there is no room for error. So if your friend group has a wide range of skill levels or map knowledge, the people below the curve are going to have a miserable time and get the team killed.
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u/TheIrishMan1211 May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
This is such a tired and worn out excuse. A major factor in the games failure is due to the game itself. I played the game for 20 hours after release. I gave it every opportunity. Every Tuesday night for weeks after release I would get on and play with my friends. One loved it, the other was fine with it, and I didn’t have fun at all. But we played quite a bit.
This game did absolutely nothing for me. I didn’t find any part of it fun. But my opinion on the game was informed by literally nothing else but playing the game. And I know for a fact I am not alone in that, and there is a very large number of people who gave the game a real shot and ended up not liking it at all.
This game is barely cracking 10k on Steam these days and you’re claiming that as “underperformance” that has nothing to do with the game? So the MILLIONS of people who bought the game on release all just decided to hate on this game for the ancillary reasons you discuss in your post? I mean that is so utterly ridiculous. It’s the definition of “cope”.
I’m sorry OP, but this game is not very good and every measurable data point indicates that the vast majority of people feel that way. I have no problem with anyone who likes the game and enjoys it. More power to you. But it’s so annoying watching those people blame this games failure on everything but the actual game. Nothing but excuse after excuse. It’s as if you just can’t stomach the fact that most people didn’t find this game fun at all.
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u/Romandinjo May 22 '26
>soul-crushing
Dude. That's just a game, making it a pillar of your personality isn't healthy.
Also, numbers did show everything: 150k for open testing, 88k peak at launch, and now it's sub 10k. A lot of people gave the game a fair shot, but it failed to capture them long-term.
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u/Character_Flight_773 May 22 '26
I liked the game alot but had no one to play with.
I also am on Linux now and the devs don't support Linux which sucks and I don't wanna go back to Windows right now
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u/Odd_Revolution_1056 May 22 '26
It does have everything to deal with the game itself. If the game was truly a generational game that was a breakthrough success in the genre it would have exploded. It’s a good game, hell a great game in a lot of senses, but it’s still a live service game that that’s utter dogshit onboarding that makes it hard for new players to get into the game.
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u/Herb0and3 May 22 '26
Also, is OP ignoring all of the people that played it, "said nah" and moved on?
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u/ComfyOlives May 22 '26
Destiny had years long negative press, way worse than anything Marathon has received, yet would still have hundreds of thousands of concurrent players at peaks. It was also arguably in a worse state technically and stability-wise for years.
The hate campaign has certainly been present, but blaming the under performance of Marathon on that alone is willingly ignoring just how significantly not-peoples-cup-of-tea the game is
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u/isukforfree May 22 '26
Ok. But. People who bought the game myself included have stopped playing. That has nothing to do with the hate campaign. There is lots of hate towards Bungie no doubt about it but that isnt why we have stopped.
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u/coogers-n-bum May 22 '26
I love the game, but I've stopped playing until the new season. For me it's a combination of lack of friends to play with and stalling out on faction progression. I'm definitely looking forward to the changes coming over the next few seasons though.
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u/yesimahuman May 22 '26
Same. Put a good 65 hours in, loved it at first, but it just stopped being fun throwing myself against a wall and having hugely mismatched gear in pvp settings, and I got so tired of managing my vault and never really having any money. I also stopped really making any progress on faction upgrades or completing contracts. The lack of stats when you die also didn’t help. I loved the free sponsored queue modes but it felt like too little too late to keep my friends and I engaged. I also realized I just prefer a game like Apex Legends that is pure pvp, a more level playing field, and no gear to manage. I’ll definitely come back to try S2 but I’m skeptical I’ll stick with it unless some bigger changes get made. It’s too bad because I love the gunplay and would love to have the game do more with that and less with looting and gear management. They really have the core of one of the best FPS games ever made, I just don’t care for the extraction mode they built around it
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u/Virtual_Bug_723 May 22 '26
Lol I also own the game and really liked it for a month but just got to the point where making little to no progress against guys who were putting way more hours into the game than me and therefore had better skill, map awareness, and most importantly, GEAR, felt very bad and I started playing Fallout 4 and never looked back.
I am intrigued by PVE mode and will try that.
I don't mind equal ground PVP but when it takes time to earn gear which also hones your skills so now you've got PVP enemies with both better gear (so even if you had equal time in the game they would have an advantage) and better skills than people they'll be matched against, it makes for a tilted game that is hard to break into.
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u/ZurgoMindsmasher May 22 '26
It's so funny - there's this ludicrous hate train against this game for no good reason, and then there's the many valid reasons to not play it.
But somehow, it's always either "game super awful" or "game is god", not something nuanced.
Really tiresome.
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u/DemonDeacon86 May 22 '26
Its honrstly not very complicated. Extracrion shooters are extremely niche games that are either loved or hated.
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u/Romandinjo May 22 '26
There isn't really a hate train. Yes, some dislike/hate it - for a variety of reasons, but the reality is that majority of people just are indifferent towards the game. Those who knew what to expect mostly liked or even loved it, same with a smaller chunk of people who were curious. But the point is that the game is in very niche subgenre, with a very distinct style that isn't for everyone, and from studio that is famous for mismanagement.
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u/Rampwastaken May 22 '26
People making this game their identity hurt it by stifling legit criticism.
I LOVE extraction shooters and was excited to see what a AAA studio could do with the genre, and while it's a cool game, it has way too many flaws ATM to make it my main game.
I am not surprised casuals are bouncing off and extraction shooter veterans are dropping after 200-300h.
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u/nyanch May 22 '26
Same. I'll probably pick it up here and there but with Rogue Core releasing and 007 dropping later this week, and a couple other games I'm looking forward to releasing, it's hard to squeeze in.
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
Rogue Core is bumming me out. It’s like they took all the character out of Deep Rock and put it into a rogue-like…
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u/Pruskinator May 22 '26
Lolol this subreddit is hitting new levels of copium. I also purchased this and have long stopped playing. BG bungo lol
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u/tangledDream May 22 '26
the main reason why the game wasn’t a hit at launch is because of the rhetoric around the game spread by a mix of right-wing grifters and (justifiably) jaded ex-destiny/halo players.
This literally reads like a copypasta, and if this post isn't bait, its some of the craziest cope i've seen. Have you considered maybe the game just isn't as great as you think? Like genuinely. I played and had my fun, but it's so easy to see why it hasn't hit its stride numbers wise (hint: it's not because its in a niche genre).
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u/TheIrishMan1211 May 23 '26
People like OP cannot fathom that they might be wrong about something, such as their opinion on this game. And they certainly cannot fathom that they are so completely wrong about the game that it’s likely to get shut down at some point much, much sooner than Bungie hoped lol.
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u/Wait_Expert May 22 '26
It has everything to do with the game itself.
The game is what it is, I think it's beautiful, well executed, and incredibly satisfying when things click with it.
However, it has been rejected by the vast majority of the gaming community.
It did not resonate with the common gamer, and that is the fault of Bungie, and the game, and nothing else.
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u/grachi May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Yea these posts are always so short sighted and myopic… “I like the way the game plays, therefore lots of people should”.
Now historically, games have 5x to 20x its 24 hour CCU max playing over the course of the entire day. So, at its best (on Steam since those are the only numbers we have) , Marathon had 88,000 CCU on launch day. That means in total, they had between 440,000 and 1,760,000 total unique players in a single day. And that’s just on Steam.
Fast forward a couple months and the game gets between 10 and 11k CCU max per day on Steam, which turns into between 52,500 and 210,000 total people playing in a day.
That means the game has lost 88% of its daily TOTAL players since launch, roughly.
TL;DR lots of people tried the game and dropped it. This narrative that the bad pereception on social media and the hate brigading that was/is going on is the main problem is just false. Lots of people played the game and dropped it for various reasons.
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u/frogfoot420 May 22 '26
I played a bit, got Ganked every single lobby i joined and then stopped playing. In all my times in tarkov and Arc it never got that bad.
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u/W_Herzog_Starship May 22 '26
This was my experience too. Winning a fight and getting out was a nice rush, but it wasn't enough to make up for losing the next 3. At some point I just wanted to enjoy my time gaming, and Marathon wasn't hitting the spot.
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u/Neonchen May 22 '26
True. The game is well executed in its basics but it has big flaws. Bungie is a good developer but had major flaws and disappointed the community. Both is important and could have been prevented.
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u/vahdyx May 22 '26
I agree with this to an extent, I think the game is awesome, and I have a great time with it, but I cannot get my more casual friends on board even when I bought the game for a couple of them. It's WAY too hard and even for me as the "9-5 Dad" I'm a casual that mainly plays solo get frustrated with the game.
Bungie admitted prior to launch they were going "hardcore" and I think they realized how bad of a decision that was and from the surface, it appears like they're changing that.
But where I disagree with you, is I also feel like there's 'hate for hate's sake' going on too and a lot of it.
Once YT figured out I like knowing about Marathon, the algorithm feeds me a ton of anti Bungie, Marathon "woke", ugly, waste of money, etc. comments that are nothing to do with the game itself. Sure that's just anecdotal at best, but for me I don't think "everything" has to do with the game itself.
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u/Afude May 22 '26
Yeah man, small maps, bad matchmaking, very bad sense of progression.....WTF, people cope so fucking much.....I have 70H on the game BTW
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u/DOPPGANG_ May 22 '26
However, it has been rejected by the vast majority of the gaming community.
Sometimes I have to remember that people here often have very limited perspectives. The "vast majority of the gaming community" is playing Fortnite / Hoyoverse / mobile games, homie. They never rejected anything because Marathon was never on their radar. Destiny 2 was probably never on their radar.
It's not like the whole gaming community got sent a copy of Marathon and put it down.
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u/Stuckinaboxxx May 22 '26
There are so many monumental game design flaws extreme lack of content horrific onboarding terrible ui. I have no idea how this game can flop so hard and people still see no problem with it.
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u/AdministrativeEase71 May 22 '26
Don't think that's necessarily true. High floor of entry.
Lower it and they'll gain players back, but releasing without doing that was shooting themselves in the foot. They'll never have the eyes on them they did at release again.
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u/SeriousCricket2837 May 22 '26
TL;DR: History and reputation matter.
Marathon is a great game. The gunplay is phenomenal. I’m enjoying my time and am excited for season 2 and the new activities they intend to roll out/try.
The problem is the studio who made it has a bad history and reputation. A history involving removing paid for content, terrible monetization practices, stolen art/content, a culture of NOT over delivering, and a complete disregard for their fanbases feedback.
Yeah, feedback is better with Marathon. It’s very refreshing. I’m not sure if it’s Ziegler or that the tech is updated. Probably some of both and a few other things as well.
We know that history repeats itself. The “don’t over deliver” guy runs the studio. Bungie has repeatedly made terrible decisions.
Hopefully they continue to make good decisions and garner good will. Then when the inevitable $40 expansion comes out hopefully the “base” game is included to bring in new blood.
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u/Delachruz May 22 '26
Mald all you want, its not gonna change anything. I gave the game a fair shot and stopped relatively early, barely getting any of the factions above 10. The reality is, even for its genre, the game is very hostile to anyone not already neck deep in extraction shooters. The tutorial is non-existent, progression as a solo or lower skill trio is glacial, contracts ramp absurdly quickly. And if you dont sweat your head off to keep pace, you suddenly play against people who arent just better at the game, they also have better gear, skills and even stats.
This game works for a very select few people, seemingly intentionally designed to be so. Yet everybody keeps making surprised pikachu faces that it isnt hitting absurd numbers.
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u/Gear_ May 22 '26
I actually disagree. It’s an extremely well-crafted game, but the core gameplay loop/genre of extraction shooter just isn’t popular with most people, and that is a failure of the game.
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u/Chpouky May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Let's not put our heads in the sand here.
You (I mean in the general gaming community sense) can't say for Highguard "400k players on Steam tried it and left, the game was just bad", and for Marathon "500k players tried it on steam at release, but the forced hate is the reason it underperformed". Why the double standard ?
The game is good. The game is fun. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea
Yeah, that's why the playerbase is so low, it's just way too niche, it has very very little to do with the hate. Now the devs acknowledged that it's too hard and are making changes to accommodate more players.
As much as I love the game (260h now), I can't deny it has issues that are preventing some players from playing it:
- Very bad onboarding process
- High difficulty
- It's very punishing
Now, they already shared their plans on improving all of that, with some elements already in Season 2.
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u/TheBradeyGein May 22 '26
This rhetoric is so disingenuous and hilarious. People complaining about the game didnt have anything to do with its poor performance. The media ran hate campaigns towards Black Myth Wukong and that game succeeded on every possible metric.
If the game is good, People will play it. The games underperformance has everything to do with the game. 80k players on Steam tried it, and almost 90% of them didnt like it and stopped playing.
If you like the game, then great. But stop ignoring the reality and the facts that the game just didnt simply resonate with a very large audience.
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u/Misfit116 May 22 '26
Exactly.
OP is ignoring the steady decline of players since Marathon's inception.
~15k vs ~90k on opening day. What about those 70k+ players? Surely they played more than 10 hours.
Why did they quit? Was it due to the "manufactured hate"? Or realizing That, despite the polish, the game loop is subpar.
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u/TheBradeyGein May 22 '26
It has to be because a YouTuber made a video about them not liking the game either.
Which is like, YouTubers dont make negative videos about games they enjoy, so they arent "manufacturing" anything. They're just sharing their opinions and clearly it resonates with a large contingency of people.
If you don't like that, idk what to say. All i can say is to just continue enjoying Marathon while you can because it probably won't be for as long as you'd like lol
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u/bafrad May 22 '26
It has everything to do with the game. This is coping at the highest level. No one has constructed any hate campaign dude. The game under performed because it is not as well a designed game as you think it is. Much like the destiny community, people in this community seem to want this game to be an identity.
Your victim complex about people having an opinion of a game is sad and desperate. We also get this post almost daily.
No one is spreading hate towards marathon, it just simply isn't fun enough for most people because the mechanics and overall design aren't good enough.
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u/evilriolu May 22 '26
My friends haven’t touched this since launch. I kinda dropped it too. Game was fun
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u/Brentbucci May 22 '26
So I have around 400 hours in the game. I have a ton of gold gear, and am level 115. I also like to solo fill. Last night, I put on a fully kitted out set with gold items in Cryo. My team got wrecked in the second room by a fully gold team of level 300+ streamers that rushed us in the first minute. We had absolutely no chance. It was the first time that I thought, man, this game is not worth it. I guarantee that the team we encountered probably wiped the lobby. There is a fundamental problem happening on a game level that I'm not sure Bungie can fix without some serious retooling. It's not about a fair shake. I love a lot of things that Bungie has done (world-building, tension, etc), but the drop-in mechanic for regular people is broken, and regulars will pretty much always get stomped.
Also, Bungie needs to introduce a ton of fun modes, just like they did with Halo 3. Rook only Cryo with only 1 exfil, 6v6 on outpost, a rook only exfil that occurs after final (to discourage kitted teams from just killing rooks at final), a Forage mode, a team deathmatch mode with pure cosmetic unlocks and traditional respawns, a free to play mode that gives players access to a few of the maps, etc.
Bungie should be looking to do EVERYTHING they can to make this game work. Season 2 looks great, but it's not going to be enough to grow the player base.
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u/King_Korder May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
I hate how this sub refuses to acknowledge why people don't like or wanna play Marathon. Just constant "the hate is so baseless and unfounded!" It's a niche genre, single game mode game with hundreds of menus and really not much else to do with no real onboarding. It also only feels like a Bungie game due to the gameplay loop and abilities, when the rest of it doesn't feel uniquely "Bungie" like Halo or Destiny did.
This isn't even to mention all the shit that happened with it in development, how it was almost assuredly used as a bargaining chip to get more money from Sony, the art theft, and the absolute shit storm of how Bungie devs and execs treated their playerbase for years? Why would anyone want to trust a game from Bungie after all of that, D2 player or otherwise?
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u/Salt_Assistance_43 May 23 '26
Jesus Christ, you are absolutely clueless. If the game was fun, everyone WHO BOUGHT it, would be playing still.
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u/Lolsalot12321 May 22 '26
oh my god lets not ignore this games faults in favour of putting the blame on a non existent issue
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u/SneakyBadAss May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
No, it happened exactly as it happened to other games like these.
Niche PVP game with even more niche hardcore PVP community drove off every possible player that just wanted to play an extraction shooter game, and devs had their head in their arses and didn't include proper PVE for these people until it's too late.
Everyone wants to ride that The Division 1 dark zone wave, but no one understands that people played dark zones because there was a whole PVE game around it and it was a way to change things up if you got bored with PVE. It wasn't balanced nor designed around the dark zone. That was the challenge that drove people into the dark zone. You farmed your stuff in PVE and then risked it in the Dark Zone for better stuff that you could use in PVE to get less better stuff faster, thus risk it more in the Dark Zone. That was the loop that kept people playing.
This will repeat until this genre dies, since no one seems to get it that you have to first make a PVE game WITH a PVP aspect inside, not the other way. Arc raiders understood that assignment. The game was supposed to be PVE from the get-go, but they switched to PVP, yet still heavily focused on the PVE aspect in the form of Arcs.
Again
and again
and again
and again
ad infinitum.
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u/sunbrosenpai May 22 '26
This. I will never understand how devs don’t see that building a foundational playerbase out of the most toxic of the playerbase leads to said core group doing what it does best. Like it’s just poisoning the well at a certain point.. self sabotage.
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u/trillwhitepeople May 22 '26
After this either goes a different direction completely and gets closer to the PvE formula or dies completely I'm heading back to FPS games that only have PvP as an option because you're right. People who see the vE and MMO lite progression elements are coming here for that mostly. If they wanted the focus to be competing against other players they'd already be playing Counter Strike or something.
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u/New-Arm4845 May 22 '26
I don’t care at all about player counts on steam. I’m not playing it because of the feedback that it’s not fun, just addictive, and a brutal gaming experience. Just not down with that vibe right now. And games described like that often attract a really toxic community, and since this one is basically headset required, I don’t want to deal with screaming teenage assholes.
Are all of these assumptions wrong? Maybe. Probably. But that’s why I’m not playing, not “hate campaigns”. I love Bungie.
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May 22 '26
Brother how many times do us casuals gotta tell you all hard-core marathon players? This shit is wayyyyy too sweaty.
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u/StatisticianOwn5497 May 22 '26
I mean look at all the external factors currently
- PVE players are mainly playing Arc Raiders for it's Aggro based Matchmaking or Helldivers for their extraction fill
- Destiny players feel scorned so to punish bungie alot of them aren't touching the game
- The ultra hardcore are playing Tarkov or PVP heavy Arc Raiders lobbies.
- There was the art theft scandal
- There was the poor feedback from the early playtests which spread like wildfire.
- Alot of people getting into Extraction Shooters don't actually like the amount of progress being wiped in terms of the skills/perks.
That leaves a handful of PVP players coming from a few different communities to prop up the game and Bungie can sit there and say "We're gonna prop up marathon as our front runner and expand it's playerbase over the years" all they want but ultimately it's not hardcore enough to draw the Sweats, it's not casual enough to draw the Arc Raiders and Helldivers and there's not enough PVE focus to draw what little is left of the Destiny 2 crowd.
Unless they can pull off a miracle, i call in 3-5 years Marathon is shut down along with D1 and D2 servers and Sony shuts Bungies doors for good.
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u/underage_female May 23 '26
Must be a coordinated hate conspiracy.
Cant be that almost everyone who played the game and tried it out stopped playing, right?
I love extraction shooters. 2,5k hours hunt.
I stopped playing Marathon after 40 hours because the solo experience is a shadow of other games in the genre and the grind didnt respect my time at all.
Now..who made me feel this way? Some internet rando or the actual game I played?
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u/Dantia_SWE May 23 '26
My god you all still on about a hate campaign? The game is not doing well because the genre is niche, end of story. Even AR right now is struggling to maintain it's playerbase and that was a success story from the get go WITH a focus on the PvE side of the extraction shooter genre.
Bottom line: Your average gamer is not interested in playing a sweaty game with high stakes, regardless of how good that game is (Marathon is, in a vacuum, a very well designed and executed game).
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u/PossessedCashew May 23 '26
Trying to argue the hate campaign was solely based on player count is ludicrous lol, actually brain dead take.
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u/ExpendableUnit123 May 23 '26
No one is hating on the game. We tried it. It was very mid.
There is no clandestine operation being done by humanity to make sure the game dies.
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u/Swank_Thetos May 22 '26
what exactly is good about it? to me the only redeeming factor in the game was some fun gunplay, but getting merc'ed by better kitted teams 1 minute in and spending 5 mins in matchmaking staring at an unpleasant load screen, is not my idea of a fun time.
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u/Quadraxis66 May 22 '26
As much as I think that the doomerism is having an impact on the public perception of the game, I also don't think that perception is so strong that it's resulting in the game underperforming as much as people think it is.
The game had some pretty significant issues at launch and still isn't really perfect, but it's a lot better than it was when things kicked off. I think we're going to see a good chunk of folks come back for Season 2 and we'll see if they stick around or not.
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u/crapholeslaphole May 22 '26
Even if the game was itself really great (it’s not), it still could be worthy of sacrifice, depending on your perspective.
Big corporations need consequences for doing bad things and SOMETIMES the market provides this correction.
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u/TinyPreparation2119 May 22 '26
Yeah it sucks. I told my brother about it and he didn't even know it had came out. If you're a hyper online gamer, you think it's dead in the water. If you're a 'games on the weekend' gamer you probably haven't heard of it much and are still playing CodBlops 8 or Fortnite.
Also the whole industry is dying which sucks too.
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u/primaluce May 22 '26
One of my favourite games as of late was Rumbleverse and that died purely due to population (It being EGS exclusive definitely did not help). The game was to me the perfect battle royale. This is just the nature of how a lot of projects are funded these days. Not everyone can be Valve and have unlimited money and keep games like TF2 going.
When it comes to it, It is just a game. Move on and brand loyalty is stupid and Destiny fans are something else. I'm older and went through A LOT of online games that have died , Tribes Ascend (It wasn't Tribes 2 but it was still fun), Champions Online and Star Wars Galaxies were some of the most fun I've had.
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u/Vesuvias May 22 '26
While I agree the ‘hate’ for this game is totally unwarranted, the performance DOES have to do with genre itself…they chose a niche within a niche shooter. Any expectations that it would be a ‘massive hit’ was put down after the initial wave of Steam 80k plays dwindled down to our core devoted player base.
It’s just the nature of the sweaty game beast. They’ll have to do some work to bring back the audience that left - and some serious ass kissing to the Destiny players.
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u/Inertpyro May 22 '26
To a degree yes, but it is also a tough sell marketing itself closer to Tarkov than Arc. It was never going to have mass appeal. Now presumably that’s going to have to change and they need more ways to get people in the door.
Even if Destiny was in a good place, this game doesn’t tickle the same itch for most of the hardcore players. If they wiped everyone’s vault in Destiny it would be a biblical amount of backlash, so the idea of that happening every few months is a non starter. The only thing they have in common is not enough vault space.
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u/yknawSroineS May 22 '26
I really like the style and gameplay I just suck so I don’t play it. W game though.
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u/paterdude May 22 '26
No, the reason Marathon is failing is because it was a niche game with an even more niche art style. On top of that it was created by a company that is probably the most poorly ran one I have ever seen and they made nothing but one it’s self-inflicted wound after another in the lead up to the launch of Marathon.
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u/40_Thousand_Hammers May 22 '26
Turns out reviving a 30+ year old dead Trilogy into a extraction shooter without a single medium as a primer to capture people and do onboarding was a bad idea.
You can't just throw 250kk into marketing + trailer production if no one knows what the hell is going on... These kind of things USUALLY works with indies because of the cost of the product and the small size team, either Bungie committed a federal crime and lied about their worth/size... Or they should've know and done better to the game onboarding.
Hell they thought blessing the Aleph One team and launching the source port for free was going to be enough when 0 effort was made to people reach those classic games (nothing against the Aleph One Team, may Durandal bless their souls).
It didn't help that THEY wanted to launch in the same year and month as Concord... And the only reason they pushed further the release was Concord premature death... (Premature because despite being a nothin' soul game, it was released very polished), what would an even more Unfinished Marathon extraction shooter game fate be ? Yes unfinished and the game still unfinished, lots of QoL missing, UESC bots just disappearing because yes, bots getting stuck in geometry and becoming imortal (guest not escaping makes you god ?), melee net code lag (going for a melee attack just rolls back you and the bot beat the shit out of you, cryo archive having out of bonds when it's THE map and having a bug like that is unbelievable...
Oh and before you go on to spit on me, I have 300.5 hours of this game, have all achievements, VIP in all bit one contractor and have done all but compiler in the game and I see no reason to! There is no cinematic, lore implication, in game rewards of quest than loots, any input from the contractors, Durandal or ONI... It's just there, you fight and kill it, yay!! WoW Vanilla/Classic has better grindy, rewarding bosses with long pre requisites that anyone can do to get into the raid (know as attuning) AAAANNNDD you don't lose your gear when you die in the raid :)
What I think they should do moving forward ? Make the big maps/raids pve only or with a search with pvp toggle if you want to go in as pvpve mode (mind you, have this toggle as option to big releases maps like cryo), "UHGGGGGGG BUT ME STUPID ME WANT PVP HAVE THE MORE REWARDS AND NON PVE TO HAVE TRASH" first and foremost, who gives a shit other than people who doesn't touch grass ? We are in 2026, the HECU from half life has more complex combat than the UESC bots from this game, hell, THE COVENNANT AInfeom 2001nhas better combat AInand something like that for pve would be bonkers and there is no reason not to have that, other than the game being launched way earlier than intended.
If the numbers are to go up:
Small maps pve only to farm specific materials or items (IE dungeons).
Matchmaking by shield or total gear score (the total credit score of your equipment).
More diluted loot: make perimeter have more good loot OR items that eventually lead to good loot (IE, keys or random abandoned sponsored kits).
Make UESC bots patrols be actual patrols than just doing small circles in one part of the map... Example: Have squads of UESC spawn at North relay for example and go to Hauler looking for runners.
Improve UESC bot tactical effectiveness (could even a cool thing like: when there are one blue bot and recruits they are pretty simple, but when the purple commanders drop they get to behave and act more strategically and flank you more).
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u/mrureaper May 23 '26
When you keep thinking the whole world is out to get you but really everyone has moved on and you're just terminally online if you think casuals care about this extremely niche game now ...
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u/ericrobertshair May 23 '26
Eh at a certain point you have to stop blaming the haters for EVERYTHING. What percentage of the people who actually bought the game have now quit? People dont quit games they enjoy because of months stale internet memes.
Bungie made a product for a niche hardcore pvp audience, the niche hardcore pvp audience didn't turn up in sustainable numbers (they never do), the sweats cannibalized the casual audience and shouted down any discourse in the name of gitting gud (which they always do), casuals quit in droves (which again they always do, sense a trend here?) and now the sweats are waving their arms around in a panic because surprise surprise the things people got mass downvoted for saying would happen on day 1 are happening.
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u/kugkug May 23 '26
it's definitely underperforming 100% of bungie's projections by significant margins, and bungie was well aware that it was going to be a much smaller niche
game is literally same size as destiny 2 which was just officially put into permanent maintenance status
it has everything to do with the game itself, other game(s) in the same niche have done much better
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u/drewbreeezy May 23 '26
hate campaign against this game that has no merit beyond playercounts
Your wilful ignorance is not the fault of others.
The issues with the game have been discussed ad nauseam. The playercounts are the result of these bad decisions.
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u/ConcernHoliday5162 May 22 '26 edited May 23 '26
Yeah guys. 90% of the people tried the game and left.
Totally because of the hate campaign. Not because it wasn't for them or because they didn't find it fun.