Marathon is not a failure. Even if the numbers might suggest otherwise, this statement speaks purely to the immense effort Bungie put into developing its latest game. From its inception, Marathon has always been, first and foremost, a title that the creators themselves wanted to play. A concrete response to a niche landscape—that of first-person extraction shooters—plagued by the demands of the current era in which the entire video game industry finds itself. Abandoned by its original director and with its core team reduced by half, the American team managed to create a work light-years away from the recent failures, which have proven to be nothing more than gambles and attempts to chase the usual trends, without trying to reinvent or refine the mechanics of their genres. For those who have never had the chance to try Marathon, or haven’t had the time to overcome the steep initial learning curve, it’s hard to convey just how much of the original Bungie’s DNA lies behind this production. Fans of extraction shooters will find in Marathon perhaps the best experience currently on the market, capable of consistently balancing the genre’s more hardcore and more casual sides, succeeding—through its constant updates based on player feedback—in building a product that is increasingly less experimental and increasingly the benchmark for the design of similar products. For those still undecided, Marathon remains a title worth considering carefully. The decision to release it as a Premium title in a market dominated by F2P games may pose a challenge given its niche nature and exclusive focus as a multiplayer title. Although a roadmap is already in place, the game’s future will depend heavily on player response, but if free events are offered, our advice is simple: Try to complete at least one run on Tau Ceti IV. If you can.
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