There’s been a whole range of conversations about Marathon’s price tag lately. Should it have been a free-to-play game? Game Director Joe Ziegler has already talked about the reasoning, and that might be fine if you’re a longtime fan of Bungie’s IPs or the extraction-shooter genre. But what about the new players who aren’t familiar with this game?
I’m no gaming expert, but Marathon seems like a tough sell when other extraction shooters like Dark & Darker and The Finals offer a much more accessible entry point.
READ: 5 Things Marathon Could Learn From Destiny 2
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+ 3Sony (now Bungie’s new overlord after the acquisition) has a history of shutting down games that don’t meet their expectations. The Last of Us multiplayer mode and the canned God of War live-service game are proof that they’re not always playing the right cards and are often just testing the market’s temperature.
In Marathon’s case, Sony seems to believe in Bungie’s approach. After all, they made Destiny—a live-service game that’s been around for more than a decade and still has a committed player base hunting sci-fi bounties. That shows there’s potential for a Bungie game with “extraction shooter” in its tagline.
Will it be another Concord?
click to enlarge+ 3Concord, priced similarly to Marathon, was a resounding failure for Sony, leaving an indelible stain on its sales record. It wasn’t a bad hero-shooter, but it launched at a time when players just weren’t interested in that kind of game.
READ: $400 Million and 8 Years of Development: What Went Wrong with Concord?
Bungie’s Marathon has real potential. Most people who played the beta had good things to say about it. The art direction alone is oozing with style and substance. Best case? It builds strong word of mouth at launch, avoids toxic gamer discourse, and cultivates its passionate community. Worst case? Well… we’ve seen what happened with Concord. I’m hoping for the former.
Will it be another Helldivers 2?
click to enlarge+ 3Helldivers 2 is Sony’s biggest live-service win right now, and if Marathon can reach even half that level of hype, they might really have something. What made Helldivers 2 work was how stupidly fun it was to play with friends. Blasting alien bugs and robots wasn’t deep, but it was exactly what you wanted for a good time with your crew.
Marathon feels similar. With its 3-man squad setup, you can hop in with your bros on a cozy Saturday night and get to extracting loot and shooting aliens. The only question is whether Marathon will have that same fun, satisfying gameplay loop—and not fall into the grindy, tedious traps that Destiny 2’s modern content sometimes does.
READ: Helldivers 2 Devs are Trying to Relist the Game to Other Countries After Sony’s PSN Blunder
These are all just speculations on my end, but I really want Marathon to succeed. As someone who’s played Destiny 2 for half a decade, I just want to see another Bungie IP that isn’t locked to our Guardians. Marathon has something special here—and if they can find the right audience, it could be their biggest game yet.