Once I went to Bellevue, Washington, in early April to go to Bungie’s headquarters and take a gander at Marathon, the studio’s upcoming extraction shooter, I remembered the primary time I performed a PC copy of Halo as a teen. Regardless of logging lots of of hours on Xbox earlier than, I used to be horrible with my mouse and keyboard till a affected person stranger spent hours guiding me to victory. I had one other information with Marathon, but it surely wasn’t a random username lots of or hundreds of miles away through the web — it was Kevin Yanes, a former Future developer who’s now the Runner gameplay lead for Marathon.
And it was in my victory alongside Yanes — and our eventual defeat — that I began to consider that with Marathon, Bungie would possibly really pull off the three-peat by bringing yet one more style to the lots.
The best way Marathon works might be acquainted to you for those who’re already an extraction shooter sicko and have performed video games like Escape From Tarkov. However even when that’s not you, the sport will nonetheless be largely acquainted for those who’ve performed a battle royale sport like Fortnite or Apex Legends. What units video games like Tarkov and now Marathon aside from the battle royale style — which contain a big group of gamers getting dropped onto a map the place they loot gadgets and attempt to be the final to outlive — is that the loot can go away the match with you. The objective of Marathon isn’t to be the final participant within the foyer; it’s to seek out cool shit (both hidden in a chest or stolen from different gamers), after which extract safely with mentioned cool shit in tow.
Every sport of Marathon begins with you choosing the Runner you’d wish to play. These Runners are primarily heroes — each has a definite look, a few particular talents, and a fistful of passive results. You’ll then set your loadout by pulling gadgets from previous runs into your stock, like elevated shields, higher-rarity weapons, and perk nodes. Or, for those who’re simply beginning out and don’t have any gadgets or foreign money but, you possibly can launch in with a sponsored pack, which is a free or low-cost (by way of credit, the in-game foreign money) loadout that comes with low-quality variations of all the pieces you want.
Whenever you’re prepared, you’ll group up (or matchmake) with two different gamers and head into the map of your selecting — of which there are a number of, every with various problem ranges and participant caps. Whereas Bungie did inform us you can flip off squad-fill matchmaking and bounce right into a spherical as a solo or duo participant, you’ll be at a definite drawback.
Picture: Bungie
You’ll load right into a map with various numbers of opponents, with the depend relying on the map dimension. Dire Marsh, the map we performed on for many of my preview, can maintain 18 gamers — six squads of three, together with your individual.
The objective is twofold. First, you wish to discover the very best sort of loot you possibly can on the map; you possibly can earn loot as a reward by finishing occasions that seem, taking up AI enemies (all of that are very harmful and can simply kill you for those who lose focus), and fixing minor puzzles. Second, you’ll be attempting to make progress on any contracts you will have with the sport’s main factions. Whereas we didn’t get to work together with the contract and status metagame as a lot as I might have appreciated, it confirmed quite a lot of promise — particularly for gamers who don’t simply wish to hunt different groups for sport.
When your backpack is full and contracts are full, it’s time to seek out an Exfil location. Whenever you activate your extraction beacon, it shoots up an enormous “please don’t damage me” beam into the sky that alerts all different gamers that somebody is attempting to flee with the good things. If you happen to survive till the Exfil goes off, you retain your spoils, and all of it goes into your vault for the following time you wish to use it. If you happen to die at any level within the match, you lose all the pieces you had in your stock and can’t get it again.
If that sounds harsh, it’s. It’s sort of the purpose. And whereas there are some friendlier parts to Marathon when in comparison with Tarkov and video games prefer it — your allies can revive you an infinite variety of instances, for instance — it’s essentially the most hardcore and punishing sport that Bungie has ever made. However that’s the place all the strain is, and it’s what led to some actually adrenaline-pumping moments throughout my classes, a response that genuinely stunned me.
Picture: Bungie
Once I first arrived at Bungie, I had assumed that Marathon wouldn’t be for me. I used to be an enormous Halo multiplayer man in my youth, I’ve put lots of of hours into PUBG, performed loads of Apex, and mainly haven’t put down Future or its sequel since 2014. However as I age, I’m much less inclined to have interaction with PvP, and for that cause, the extraction style hasn’t ever actually gotten my consideration. Though Bungie has managed to make video games that talk to me for my complete life, my historical past with the studio wasn’t sufficient to outweigh my skepticism.
After the builders walked us by means of how Marathon works, I used to be escorted to the play space to get my fingers on the sport. The squads had been premade, and I used to be positioned in a gaggle with one other American journalist and one from a distinct nation who struggled to speak with us. And thus started our morning of getting destroyed. Every time we bumped into different gamers, it didn’t go effectively for us, in what admittedly felt like a real “random matchmaking” expertise.
As I went to lunch for the day, I felt conflicted. On one hand, I apprehensive that my PvP woes had been effectively based, and that Marathon would ultimately not be very enjoyable if I couldn’t reliably or confidently tackle different squads. Then again, the sport was slick as hell. The glossy, mechanical aesthetic is astounding, and the sturdy artwork course has already pushed up hype. So long as I used to be progressing my contracts and simply being current on the planet of Marathon, I was having enjoyable. My concern was what would occur when these contracts turned extra intense, and when not interacting with different gamers would now not be an choice.
Fortunately, issues modified after lunch, as Bungie determined to maneuver my group round. All of a sudden, we had been joined by Kevin Yanes. All anybody would say about Yanes was that he was good at Marathon. That’s an understatement, I quickly realized. Yanes modified the sport for me and our third squadmate, not as a result of he might carry us whereas we had been studying — though that was actually a part of it, I gained’t lie — however as a result of he might educate us issues that will have taken hours of enjoying on our personal to find.
Once we dropped into our first match collectively, Yanes opened the map and pinged two close by places. “OK, we received a Advanced spawn,” he mentioned, denoting the place on the map we had been. “There are two different squads that can spawn right here and right here, so we must be cautious until we wish to go after them instantly.” It was overwhelming — and intoxicating. What began as a group that completely didn’t wish to get into scrapes turned a squad that was actively searching gamers down. All of a sudden, mysterious gas-filled rooms that when appeared not possible to open, we now knew methods to vent. An Exfil beam didn’t imply “thank god, a group is leaving” anymore; it was extra like an enemy group’s dinner bell ringing to say, We discovered all this cool stuff for you; please come take it! And we did.
Picture: Bungie
As my information grew, so did my consolation stage. In very brief order, I discovered myself going from asking Yanes inquiries to taking my newfound information and placing it into motion. Nonetheless, I did fear that Marathon wouldn’t be enjoyable with out somebody like Yanes as a squadmate. That the enjoyment was in extracting with nice shit each time, not within the sport itself. However even after we misplaced to some extraordinarily proficient Valorant gamers on the ultimate match of day 2, I discovered that I nonetheless felt good about my expertise and my group.
It’s too dangerous that not each participant on the market can have Yanes to show them the sport — as a lot as his co-workers joked that they need to ship him with each copy of Marathon. However they are going to have me. And their favourite streamers. And guides (on epicgamejourney). And Tarkov buddies. And Halo gamers. And Guardians from Future’s Crucible.
Since Halo, Bungie has relied not solely on its expert builders, however on its neighborhood of gamers around the globe to assist with tutorializing its video games. For my buddies, I might be Yanes relating to Marathon — I would be the on-line stranger I met after I performed Halo for the primary time again within the day.
Marathon is tough. It’s punishing, and it’s deliberately irritating. It has low lows and excessive highs, by design. It’s a tough promote to the lots — essentially the most tough pitch Bungie has made but. However what Bungie has all the time been good at is producing converts: gamers who see the imaginative and prescient, get pulled inside, and might’t wait to share the sport with their buddies. I discover myself an unlikely convert to Marathon’s imaginative and prescient, and I left Bellevue determined to get my fingers on the sport once more — among the best emotions you possibly can have about one thing you’re enjoying when on the clock.
There are one million components that would sink Marathon: the crowded reside service market, the sport’s monetization technique — all that Bungie has confirmed is that it gained’t be free-to-play — its launch timing, and the state of the worldwide financial system. You’d should be a idiot to have a look at any upcoming sport in 2025 and say, “That’s a surefire hit.” However what I can say, with out being a idiot, is that Marathon made me actually get pleasure from PvP for the primary time in practically a decade.
Others have been instructing me to play Bungie video games for 20 years, and even when I gained’t be nearly as good a trainer as Kevin Yanes, I’m excited to pay it ahead with my very own buddies when Marathon involves PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X on Sept. 23.
Disclosure: This text is predicated on a Marathon preview occasion held at Bungie’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, from April 2-4. Bungie supplied epicgamejourney’s journey and lodging for the occasion. You’ll find further details about epicgamejourney’s ethics coverage right here.
