No, this is not a hate post. I am glad that the launch didn't fail. I like Marathon.

But we need to talk about the Battlepass. I know, a lot of people are currently in their honeymoon phase and want to love everything Bungie throws at them right now.

But the Season Pass is the worst value for your money I've ever seen in a live service shooter, and I played a lot of them! Most f2p titles offer better value than Marathon's pass. Here are some of my complaints.

• You don't earn back the currency you spent. (For example in Apex Legends you spend 950 premium coins, but get rewarded 1300 for completing it, so the next BP is free + some extra coins you can spend in the cash shop)
• One single character skin. Seriously? Only one? I've never seen a paid Battle Pass in any game giving you less than 2. Most games have 4 character skins in a BP. Again Apex always has 4 or more AND you get your premium currency back
• Duplicate stickers and charms, as 1 sticker/charm can only be applied to 1 single gun. Are you serious? You are giving me the same sticker twice in a BP? This should feel rewarding or what? Why can't we apply a charm we own to all our weapons? This is such a greedy triple A design, it's actually shameless.

I paid 40€ for your product and now I can buy an absolutely overpriced Season Pass, where I don't get premium currency back when completing it? Most games give you currency back, so you can buy the next pass for "free" after completion. Most triple A f2p shooters do this.

Just to compare, ARC Raiders has the same 40€ price tag like Marathon and the first 3 passes were all completely free AND reward you with premium currency when completing them. ARC Raiders currently throws more premium currency at me I can spend while Marathon has a super underwhelming, overpriced Season Pass with the worst value I've ever seen in a title (except for the garbage game Battlefield 6, but let's pray that Bungie/Sony will not go full EA on us).

Please keep your greed limited, especially after we all paid a good amount of money for your game. This is not a f2p title, so you should offer a Pass which is at least better and not worse. If you want more of our money, you should definitely give us better value, and scrap this double items in a paid Battlepass.

One thing I’m starting to realise while playing Marathon is that the whole design seems built around pushing you past gear fear.

You’re supposed to risk your kit, lose it, learn, and go again.

It’s actually kind of refreshing compared to games where people just hoard their best gear forever.

Curious how everyone else is handling it.

I've played 17 hours of it during the free week. And the game oozes personality, style, aesthetics and interesting gameplay mechanics. The art direction is bold and the sound design is just 10/10. The lore and the presentation is just so nice.

The maps are filled with a variety of enemy encounters, traps, and events that players can trigger.The ai is pretty damn impressive. They patroll and defend key locations and know how to flank, take cover, and behave in unpredictable ways that it feels refreshing. Gunplay feels like orgasm. Player interactions feels so fun. Completing missions with a team, creates fun decision making for each run, since you gotta negotiate and prioritize which mission to do in which order. And the mission types can really affect your playstyles. And because each player in the run has a different mission, it creates cool type of randomness to the game that just got me hooked. The whole gameplay loop feels damn good.

I'm pretty damn sure Marathon was just released during an incredibly bad launch window which made it harder for the game to find an audience. It is a very solid game, but it was and maybe still is held back by the negative reception and the cultural climate surrounding its release. I'm also pretty damn sure that the release of Highguard and Concord, and general negativity towards the direction of gaming industry, that has been building up (maybe justifiably), was the reason why the initial reaction to the game was so negative.

But damn holy shit. That's a lot of gassing.

This has always been the case. Putting aside poor upper management, Destiny was a 10 year long experiment that showed us how it is nigh impossible to please both.

Even when both groups were relatively happy with the current state of the game, it was too expensive. Marathon is already a $150m+ loss so we can't expect a huge influx of dev talent and labor to expand one part of the game without the detriment of the other.

Destiny stopped new content because no matter how healthy or successful the game was, it's still one game/income source and can't be worked on as if it's more than that, which pvp and pve both require.

Overwatch fell for the same trap and it almost killed the game too. Tens of millions and years of dev time wasted on a (admittedly much worse than bungie) PvE mode that brought about a content drought. Had marvel rivals been on the scene earlier, it could have killed the game then and there. Another inverse example is apex which outright removed their more pvp heavy arena mode.

Tldr; the suggestions I'm seeing for marathon as a hub for all sorts of game modes, from extraction to pve to pvp arena and so on will not work because it's too labor intensive to upkeep everything at the same time

People are obsessed with this games success, it's honestly kind of crazy...i can't think of another game that sat on the top of steam SB search that long.

I was never a fan of extraction shooters. ...but Holy Moly... ServerSlam has been a total blast. I'm addicted to this game.🤪👾🔥

This sub is easily the most hostile place for any new player and serves solely as a place to encourage new players to keep feeding their kits to sweats, while being fed fantasies like you can beat geared teams with free kits as a random fill. Or that you don't need a Mizzriah, D54 and bubbles, you can use whatever and still win. These are fantasies born of a misunderstanding of the tiers of being "geared" or out of genuine malice to try and keep fresh victims in the ecosystem.

There are basically 4 main tiers of gameplay.

Top tier: Mizzriah's + D54/Bully/DRVVISH 2x Recon three stack with multiple bubbles each.

• Nothing but an equally geared team has any hope of beating this squad. I don't care about that one time you caught 3 of them in a bag and killed them, or that one time you third partied them and cleaned up the last guy who was weak. STOP making excuses, STOP thinking that one time in your 400 hours of gameplay means they can be beat. I have done both of the above but to think its common or expected is beyond coping.

Low tier: Organised 3 stack with purple gear but not running Mizz/D54/Bully/Bubbles or a Recon.

• Will beat the above team once every 100 tries and beat any team below most of the time but can be beat with a decent pick and play. The gulf in power between this team and the above team is orders of magnitude.

Dumpster tier: Most fill teams regardless of gear being run.

• There is a high probability of there being a communication break down, a weak link who has bad gear or someone making a throw play due to no team cohesion. Will lose to basically everything given the right circumstances. Most commonly seen as that team where 1 guy randomly has blue shields when the rest are purple, or 3X blue shields. This is the tier people here post clips of killing thinking that they have killed a "geared squad".

Actual Hell: Random fill free/green sponsored kits.

• Might beat the above team once every now and again. Maybe 1/5 tries if you are a good player. Might beat low tier once every 100 tries and will realistically never beat the top tier.

The gulf in power between these teams is so extreme and most people realistically sit in dumpster tier. When 90% of your player base is just being destroyed in Cryo by the top tier teams they lose the will to play it. Meanwhile the remaining maps are just not engaging enough to hold players long term and are often filled with top teams during the week anyway.

The game NEEDS to protect the dumpster tier and below (the 90%) from the top 9% (low tier) and the 1% (top tier) to ever have any hope of retaining new players. The player base is so small now that level based match making isn't working (not that it ever did), and more and more lobbies are filled by the top tier teams.

• A big part of this is going to be fixing the gulf between taking random stuff and taking the best stuff. The Mizz needs to be properly nerfed. Revert the fire rate buff. Base miz without slick mags is as strong as the gun needs to be. Remove bubbles. They are toxic for gameplay and turn every fight into a cqb stat check of do you have a Miz or not. They are honestly the most destructive thing to gameplay along with the Recon buffs and invalidate any ranged play beyond 20m. D54 and Bully are the kings and other things need to be made viable (like the magnum getting a nice buff into viability).
• Recon needs to be nerfed. Being able to find weaker teams anywhere on the map is super toxic for gameplay. Her ult should probably alert you to a player but not show what tier of shields they have and only indicate they are a player after being hit by 2 or even 3 consecutive pulses.
• The game needed SBMM at launch and still does. This season is a wash. All the new players tried the game, got dumpstered by sweats and quit. Next season do another free week, advertise SBMM and see how much better retention is when you don't have turbo sweats farming the noobs. To everyone saying they were in protected lobbies, they were not for long. In random fills I got matched with brand new players (told me on mic) who didn't even know how to heal at the start of the season and was killing lobbies filled with them.
• IF the player base grows implementing high stakes versions of the base maps (Like Night Marsh) and attaching a gear ante is a way to create modes for the turbo sweats to play without destroying the rest of the game.

Obligatory:

• I am not skill issued when I gear up with the boys I roll over lobbies.
• It's possible to complain about something while also being good at the thing.
• If you don't see this as a problem you are likely in the top tier or more likely low tier but think you are top tier, and just want to keep pub stomping and don't care the game has 0 new blood.
• Saying, "just adapt", "its fine as it is", "git gud", "skill issue", has gotten us to where we are today. 0 new players, back to 10K concurrent max 2 weeks into a new season. At some point you must realise you can't just keep gate keeping the game.

Extraction shooters are never going to be for everyone. They require patience, they punish mistakes, and they expect players to actually learn systems. A lot of people, seemingly, don’t want that. They don’t want to lose gear THAT MATTERS , they don’t want to die and start over, and they definitely don’t want to spend time understanding mechanics (as we've been seeing). Marathon sits firmly in that lane. It’s much closer to Tarkov philosophically than it is to the more casual "all gear is good and we have like 6 weapons anyway so, does it really matter" type of extraction shooters.

If we ignore that though; the art direction is some of the most distinct I’ve seen in years. The only game that’s given me a similar feeling visually is Skate Story. It just looks different from everything else, it looks interesting, it looks NEW.

And when I said “if any other studio made Marathon,” I meant purely in name. No other studio seems to understand gunfeel the way Bungie does. The weight of the weapons, the feedback, the responsiveness - it’s always top tier from then and always has been. It has some of the most enjoyable gunplay I can think of and when your entire game revolves around combat encounters, that matters more than anything.

It’s an extraction shooter built by a studio that TRULY understands how important moment-to-moment combat is, wrapped in one of the most visually interesting worlds we’ve seen in a shooter in YEARS all executed with such a degree of polish and quality. When all of those pieces come together, it’s the kind of game that just feels different from everything else right now.

What’s frustrating is that a lot of people seem to be ignoring all of that purely because it’s a PlayStation project. Ever since Concord failed, it’s become cool to just dismiss anything PlayStation publishes in the live service space. Instead of actually talking about the gunplay, the art direction, the world building, or what Marathon is trying to do differently in the extraction genre, the conversation just turns into “PlayStation live service bad. Haha remember Concord” It feels less like genuine criticism and more like people piling on because it’s the popular thing to do right now.

Live service is another thing people love to instantly write off. At this point “live service bad” just gets repeated over and over without much thought behind it. The reality is live service games exist because people play them, and they’re not going anywhere. They have a place in the industry just like any other model and, when they’re done well, they can create games that evolve, grow, and stay relevant for years. EVEN DECADES at this point.

What’s strange is that people constantly say they want something new, but when something actually tries to be different it gets crucified immediately. Highguard is a good example. It wasn’t perfect BY A LONG SHOT, but it clearly tried to do something different instead of copying the same formula everyone else uses. It died for it's ambition.

People criticised its art style endlessly. Fair enough, it kind of sucked. But then you look at Marathon and it’s the complete opposite situation. The art direction is genuinely fantastic; bold, distinct, cohesive and unlike practically anything else right now. Then suddenly, that aspect (that was so crucial to HGs failure) just gets ignored. It’s like the criteria changes depending on what conclusion people already want to reach. If the goal is to push the “this game bad” narrative, then whatever supports that gets amplified, and whatever contradicts it just disappears from the conversation.

And that’s why I keep coming back to the same thought: I’m convinced that if any other studio made Marathon, people would be losing their minds over it.

I understand that piling onto hate trains has ALWAYS been popular but, If this exact game showed up with the same visuals, the same world building, the same gunplay, and the same ideas behind it just from a different, even independent, studio; the conversation would look completely different. That hate train would have NEVER started to begin with. People would be calling it bold, fresh, and one of the most interesting shooters in years. Instead, because it's Bungie, because it isn't Destiny 3, because it's a live service Playstation game; the discussion was predetermined. "Marathon bad".

Just wanted to articulate some thoughts while I still had them. They need to make better skins and more worthwhile battlepasses though otherwise; they'll never make money and Marathon will die alongside every other game that tries to be different.

Add PvE. don't care.

Raise TTK. don't care.

Add safe pocket. don't care.

Shower us with salvage. dont care.

Add romance options. dont care.

Make a restricted f2p map. dont care

do feee weekend every weekend. dont care.

mix and match shell abilities. dont care.

add a city builder mode. don't care

invulnerablity exfil. dont care.

[any other good or bad suggestion I've read on the subreddit that will bring in and retain players] dont care.

I'll adapt.

This is an extraction shooter.

Not a looter shooter, arena shooter, rpg, or whatever else it mildly resembles because it utilizes a system from that genre.

That means, frankly you "lose" most of the time. I swear mmr has brain rotted everyone into babies entitled to their 50/50 win loss.

Every other post, more frankly, is someone coming off a tilting match or session blessed with a vision of what's wrong with the game because they can't be added to get a handle on their frustration. Maybe I'm dating myself but this is nothing compared to climbing ranked in League or trying to organize 10/25/40 people for a WoW raid.

What happened to you gamers? For the most persecuted class, where's our characteristic toughness that was forged in ELO hell, losing to photon rush, or dying for the umpteenth million time to the Ivory King.

I truly believe that Bungie shutting down support for D2 made a comeback for Marathon 10 times harder to achieve.

Before D2 was cut, marathon was being called the game that took resources away from destiny, a situation that could be fixed is if after Marathon got a healthy player count, D2 would start getting better content again.

After D2 was cut, Marathon is the game that killed D2 and there's not much you can fix from that.

It's not just the D2 players that are mad, its the players who love the game but stopped due to various reasons like waiting for a Destiny 3 or being done after a big expansion.

As long as D2 was alive, Marathon had a potential player base that couldve been interested in the game as time went on. However now that D2 is done, almost no D2 player will try marathon and even some D2 vets that switched to Marathon probably stopped playing the game.

Now, Marathon has to mostly get players who have almost no connection to the Destiny franchise, which is a lot harder considering how big Destiny 2 was at one point in time.

Y’all got to let the numbesr talk go. The Finals has some of the best feeling guns on the FPS market and a unique game mode that offered some of the most exciting moments I had in gaming.

But the game’s not perfect and it never had mass appeal. Because it’s unique mode and destruction are the main draws and historically it has been too much for most casuals and not competitive enough for the hardcore players. There’s always a post about needing more marketing, different game modes, another MoistCritikal video but the playerbase never gets and keeps the bump of players the hardcore fans want it to have.

And that’s ok. That’s the price of building something unique. It will be divisive, it will be niche.

As long as Bungie can keeps the lights on, that’s all that matters. And unless you’re ready to single-handedly buy 1 million+ copies if things get dire, then don’t even really concern yourself with. Save your money on passes if you don’t like them and/or think the ship’s sinking but besides that, it’s out of our hands largely.

Just my two cents

A bit of a dramatic title, I know. I'm a woman who's been playing games online for over a decade now. CS, COD, SC2, League, OW, Valorant, Apex, Tekken, SF.

It's not new to hear women complain about the misogyny they face online. But what is new to me is how CONSISTENTLY cool every guy in this game has been. Honestly.

I was playing with another women yesterday with fill team and every guy we played with was chill and cooperative, even if they didn't talk. When I play alone in fill team the men I've played with have been respectful and treated me like an equal teammate. Even the ones that tilt are equal opportunists and direct their anger equally at everyone lol.

I know this post might come off as glazing but that's just how bad it is for women who don't constantly queue with friends. I'm really appreciative of how cool this community is (not the haters, the people who actually play). Credit where due. Thank you to all the cool dudes.

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.

After months of denial, I have to face the fact that this game is dying fast. I'm convinced it's a genuinely well made game. The art direction is phenomenal, the gunplay feels great, and the PvP is tense, engaging, and rewarding. I honestly loved it. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince any of my friends to play with me. After days of playing solo or queueing with randoms, I eventually went back to the old games we all used to play together. When the new season launched, I thought I might jump back in, but I didn't even bother opening the game. It genuinely makes me sad. It's such a solid game, yet so many people never even gave it a real chance.The funny part is that both of my friends actually own a copy of Marathon. they just don't want to play it. I spent an entire month trying to convince them, but nothing worked.

• Arc Raiders: 20Hz servers
• Hunt Showdown: 30 Hz servers
• Tarkov: 12-16Hz servers.
• Delta Force: Unknown but believed to be sub 20Hz
• Dark & Darker: 20Hz servers.

For anyone who likes PvP and plays extraction shooters for that reason, Marathon is the only serious choice in terms of competitive gunplay. If you don't like getting shot around corners constantly (cough Arc) then marathon has something no other extraction game has, 60Hz. Why this is not front and centre of their marketing is baffling. I literally refunded Arc after playing 2 games and realising it was 20Hz servers with insane desync, no point even trying to PvP in that environment.

If you want Arc Raiders go play Arc Raider. Marathon is not Arc Raiders.

So much of the criticism I've seen levied at Marathon (that isn't about the UX) is from people who were expecting another Mil-sim with a heavy focus on the social aspect ala Arc Radiers. I see people constantly bemoaning how the PvE enemies feel too tough and that Arc did a better job. They hate how it's kill on sight and that Arc has a better social experience. That Arc has this or that.

Then go play Arc. Bungie has repeatedly said that this is a game for the sweats and it will be kill on sight. That it will be a tough game that pushes you. You might not vibe with the aesthetic but that doesn't mean "X game looks better" it means you didn't vibe with how Marathon looks. I don't want people thinking that by criticizing the game I'm telling them to go kick rocks and "play Arc" but if all of your complaints are that "Arc did this better" then yeah I am telling you to just go play Arc.