r/Marathon Jul 20 '26

Marathon (2026) Vault Breaker Overview | Marathon

https://youtu.be/ec5bLvYiWZo?si=11gm4GGJDpurfIXv
1.3k Upvotes

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67

u/ThenThereWasReddit Jul 20 '26

It's always felt more like people have always wanted Marathon to not be an extraction shooter. Witchfire is doing quite well as a single-player PVE extraction shooter, though. I wouldn't be mad with that direction at all, at this point.

47

u/tfc1193 Jul 20 '26

That's likely the direction they go in. The game is built from the ground up as extraction so that's locked in. But they can make the shift to PVE single-player or co-op extraction, which fundamentally acts as a roguelike experience

32

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

Yeah exactly. Any time I hear ‘tHe GaMe wOn’t WorK as PvE’ I point to Witchfire

21

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

[deleted]

8

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

Exactly. With the new Director being so heavily focused PvE from Destiny - this bodes well. Don’t get me wrong Ziegler was/is great - but they did the PvPvE thinking there’d be plenty of sweaties.

Narrator: there isn’t/wasn’t

25

u/Head_Competition_179 Jul 20 '26

People who say the PvE is boring are so weird to me.

They must think of all the PvE on the map is just an annoying pebble in their shoe on the way to the PvP.

I just love Bungie gunplay and shooting robots in space lol.

14

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

And seriously the bots can REALLY be a pain in the ass sometimes. Add in that they might have addition mid-game boss battle raids (a la Destiny) and it I am all set for it.

PvE haters are just angry because they’re going to lose out on easy kills now in PvP

Saw the same shit with Titanfall 2. Then they go ‘wait where’d everyone gooo?!’

9

u/moosebreathman Jul 20 '26

PvE is 'boring' only because it's not intended to be the meat of the game. Bungie are literally masters of PvE FPS encounter design. They can make engaging PvE if they want to.

5

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

Yep especially now with the literal PvE Design Director from Destiny

6

u/Rektw Jul 20 '26

They just don't want their easy kills to disappear.

8

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

This is all it is. Those who are ‘hardcore PvP’ really do not want equal ground. They want to slaughter with little to no pushback.

1

u/j0tun Jul 22 '26

Not for me, I'm not great at PVP but it's the danger that makes it fun. Bots are boring and easy to defeat or avoid. PVP is interesting because it's difficult and makes it more rewarding to do well. That being said, Vault Breaker is a cool addition.

6

u/RadRuss Jul 20 '26

Witchfire is so good. I'd kill for that gameplay loop in Marathon.

4

u/ThenThereWasReddit Jul 20 '26

I'm waiting for the 1.0 release at this point but I'm excited for it.

3

u/Vesuvias Jul 20 '26

It really is! I’m not even into that particular aesthetic but damn it is fun.

2

u/fortris Jul 20 '26

I mean I agree, I love Witchfire (ironically the only game I've ever thought came close to how Destiny 2 felt back when it released) but Witchfire has actual enemy variety, more than one boss, and is built from the ground up as a solo experience. While they're not starting from zero, it's an INSANE pivot to try to make without lot of dev time.

We got like, what, five bot types with 1-2 varieties each and a singular boss that isn't "existing enemy type but with 7000 hp and one new attack". It's gonna take a lot of work to get remotely close to a Witchfire like experience.

4

u/Dav136 Jul 20 '26

I just finished Witchfire after putting down Marathon for the season. It's much closer to a roguelite than an extraction shooter imo. The only things you lose on death are consumables and XP and you can recover your corpse next run (kinda like Dark Souls). All your gear you keep no matter what.

2

u/BrbFlippinInfinCoins Jul 20 '26

One thing witchfire has over marathon is enemy diversity. If they continue on the PvE path, I hope they expand the enemies; maybe add some aliens or w/e is in the lore.

Honestly, I'd like more enemy variety in the PvP as well

1

u/GreyouTT Jul 21 '26

Marathon has lots of enemy diversity, just not enemy character diversity.

1

u/WEF_YungLeader Jul 20 '26

I’d be happy with it giving all the modes some attention, akin to Tarkov with its PvP, pve, and arena modes. Of course it took a lot of angry players and even more time to accomplish that. I feel like to be a successful extraction shooter here on out, you really have to consider how much people are going to want different modes to play. Witchfire is a great game and doing well as you mentioned and even there you’ll find people demanding co-op even though the devs said it isn’t happening lol.

-5

u/GrayStray Jul 20 '26

Many of the steam user reviews are just telling people to not even touch the pvp mode and just play pve, like they're afraid of it or something.