Marathon 2025 - Bungie's new AAAA Extraction shooter

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creaturestorm said:
Does Bungie just shutter it's doors and turn off the servers? Does Sony release another season or two of Marathon or do they just shut the servers down? If it contines to exist does it go F2P or game pass?
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My guess is they're pretty much gutted to the point where you only have a support team to maintain the servers and fix bugs here and there like Paladins. Anyone of actual value will either be given to a different studio that Sony owns or fucks off somewhere else to create their own studio or join another. Bungie was also acquired to provide consulting for GaaS so depending on how valuable that consulting is could either be their saving grace or another nail in the coffin in Sony's eyes. I really can't see it going f2p, not without some kind of strings attached like how Destiny 2 isn't really f2p the moment you want to wade into the deep end.

I'd play the game but after watching a few Aztecross streams on it, I'm good. I was interested but after finding out it wasn't going to be a solo friendly experience my interest died. I just don't like playing with other players regardless of if they're my allies or not because I want to be the sole person doing the dumb fun shit and that way if I fuck up I'm only impacting myself. Finally there's nothing there that really grabs me and pulls me in. I got my Witchfire, Barony and Factorio to keep me occupied enough to forget this exists.

I have a question regarding ranked. What exactly is the appeal of it for an extraction shooter?
 
Burgundy Brandy said:
I was interested but after finding out it wasn't going to be a solo friendly experience my interest died.
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From what I'd seen it's pretty solo-friendly, especially compared to contemporaries like Tarkov. They just give you a straight up freebie kit to work with so you're never completely lacking for gear. It rotates, and it's low-rarity, but it's free. There's zero reason to have gear fear when tasking here, especially when most of the tasking can be done without requiring extraction (apparently). Honestly it's one of the things that's got me considering buying it (albeit on a sale).
 
Civillian 18 said:
"I do not need to eat shit to know that it is, in fact, shit" or some other such platitude.
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I'm not saying Marathon is outright shit, even. Perhaps the most concord thing about it is, ironically, that it's by all accounts a perfectly functional game - at worst an average one outclassed by better extraction shooters. Everything I hear about the monetization pisses me off, but that doesn't mean the game itself isn't fun.

But I don't need to play it to:
- Look at the main platform's player metrics
- Remember that significant, new endgame content came out for the game this week
- Notice that it didn't significantly move the needle to slow the decline, or bring back players
- Remember that's unusual for most games
- Come to the conclusion that's likely because the new endgame content is lacking by some measure, even if it's essentially random guesses as to what measure that is
- And therefore assume that a claim of it staying above 15k the whole week is unlikely. Which is literally all I was truly debating in the first place.

And sure enough, in the lull before maintenance, it's hit that level - heck, it's even gone below 14k. Though to be fair, it's obviously not getting the players who might otherwise play on a weekday because of maintenance and thus it's not a true indicator of it's popularity; it might also fall below several times but never be recorded at the hourly scale this week.
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I'm well aware that my knowledge about the game is limited to purely what I see and read from other people, and as a result I cannot truly state for myself the general quality or the specific qualities of the game. But the game's had enough success that if it released an unconditionally great piece of free, new content, it should have a bigger resurgence than what it got. And even then, it could be the best extraction shooter ever with millions of loyal, daily players... and I still wouldn't be interested in it as anything other than a market trend to watch.
 
Burgundy Brandy said:
Bungie was also acquired to provide consulting for GaaS so depending on how valuable that consulting is could either be their saving grace or another nail in the coffin in Sony's eyes
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Considering the ongoing trainwreck that Sony's GaaS initiative has been, whatever sacred knowledge Bungie possesses is not worth shit. Sony is about to release Concord part deux and trois, with Hunters Gathering and Fairgame$ - both fated to flop instantly, and they've canceled more than half of the other trash they were making.

I've also heard that Bungie aren't just incompetent, but actively sabotaged or attempted to sabotage any GaaS project under Sony's umbrella they perceived as competition. Bungie are the proverbial Jew poisoning the well and have been for a long time, even before being bought by Sony.

Disc said:
the general quality or the specific qualities of the game
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If the game was truly good, people would play it.

Helldivers 2 and ARC Riders managed to claw out a profitable niche in an already oversaturated market, so it's not like consumers are averse towards trying new games or sticking around, it's just that the slop Bungie is offering is not worth the squeeze.

Note that not even the majority of the battered Bungie fanbase tuned in to play this turd.
 
creaturestorm said:
lots of words
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wholetthegodsout said:
This is a likely scenario. I totally predict a 10% off sale and a free weekend when the next season starts to pump up that player base
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a major sticking point for me is that I'd have to launch my windows partition to play the game. 99% of games run on Linux in The Year of our Lord 2026. I genuinely don't think that the kernel level anti-cheat is worth it for this game.
Disc said:
But I don't need to play it to:
- Look at the main platform's player metrics
- Remember that significant, new endgame content came out for the game this week
- Notice that it didn't significantly move the needle to slow the decline, or bring back players
- Remember that's unusual for most games
- Come to the conclusion that's likely because the new endgame content is lacking by some measure, even if it's essentially random guesses as to what measure that is
- And therefore assume that a claim of it staying above 15k the whole week is unlikely. Which is literally all I was truly debating in the first place.
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Farther up in the thread I wondered if this game was capable of filling servers. I think the main problem that his game is going to have is maintaining "critical mass" where there's enough players in enough regions at similar skill levels to match people properly.
If you just bought the game today and load in, it seems like you're gonna be playing against the sweatiest nerds possible and that doesn't sound like fun for anyone.
 
Burgundy Brandy said:
I have a question regarding ranked. What exactly is the appeal of it for an extraction shooter?
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There is a problem in extraction shooters where there is no match making. People who just bought the game are thrusted into matches with people who have logged 5000+ hours.

In a game like tarkov you can go in solo, but you will be matching into teams of 5 or less players.

Another problem is people just rat and they rat for hours. Depending on a particular patch a naked man with a pocket full of shells and busted ass Mosin could sit in a bush for 45 minutes, just waiting for an opportunity to shoot you in the head. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain. We've all done it before, some times its the only option you have. To quote/paraphrase Pestily "The best way to play this game is to just sit in a bush and I dont want to play like that."

Extraction shooters like tarkov couldnt give a single shit about the player experience or what is fair or fun.

A ranked mode that matches people based on MMR, requires them to queue as a team of 3, requires participating characters to risk high value loot, and requires players to shoot/move/loot will upset the aforementioned problems.

ScurvyRat said:
I genuinely don't think that the kernel level anti-cheat is worth it for this game.
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Didnt you supposedly play Tarkov?
 
DickMain said:
There are a few things that could get me wanting to try this game if it's ever on a supersale even as a solo
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This got me thinking, and I've come up with the only conceivable gambit Bungie could pull to make this game a hit: let me call other players niggers consequence-free
I'd buy it right now, and I wouldn't be the only one.
 
The Secret Sauce said:
This got me thinking, and I've come up with the only conceivable gambit Bungie could pull to make this game a hit: let me call other players niggers consequence-free
I'd buy it right now, and I wouldn't be the only one.
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Once upon a time Bungie let you shit talk people while tbagging them and no one ever got in trouble for it.
 
creaturestorm said:
Once upon a time Bungie let you shit talk people while tbagging them and no one ever got in trouble for it.
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And it was the closest I've ever been to having black friends tbh.
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They treat every game like a kindergarten classroom, then they wonder why nobody uses in-game voice chat anymore. The last time I played a multiplayer game, I got muted for typing "I'm probably gonna get fucked, I haven't played in years". Not raped, but merely fucked.
 
The Secret Sauce said:
League of Legends, feel free to laugh at me. You can literally be disciplined for "refusal to communicate", but god forbid you share important information about the game in a way that includes mild vulgarity.
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My friend got chat muted in League onetime for calling his support "A boosted bonobo."

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What did riot mean by this?
 
Professor Donger said:
Halo 2-Reach and Call of Duty from like World at War to about Black Ops 2 were peak Xbox Live
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Halo 2 was like a proto VR chat. That was before Xbox even had dedicated voice chat, you had to be in a game together to do it. I made lifelong friends just standing around bullshitting in custom lobbies talking about AMV Hell and Brokencyde. Twenty fucking years ago jesus.
 
The Secret Sauce said:
League of Legends
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Game was basically patient zero for all the jannying practices online games use currently. Said something in chat? That's a ban. Didn't use chat? That's a also ban. Picked an off meta chimp? That's a ban. Picked an off role chimp? That's a ban. If anyone is interested, look up the weird shit Jeffery 'Lyte' Lin used to get up to.
 
DickMain said:
I'm several Huxley: The Dystopias old.
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Huxley was honestly too ambitious for the time and what Ijji was capable of as a publisher. Apparently the Koreans got a version that lasted a while, but I remember being invited to the beta and being discouraged that it wasn't going to release. The gameplay was very Unreal Tournament like, which I absolutely loved. Just dump it in the unmarked grave next to Soldier Front, GunZ, and Drift City.

A handful of my friend group are currently playing Marathon and seem to like it, but I'm not spending $40 for an experience that I know will make me miserable. I was hoping the game would be a single player story that expanded upon the original lore, but nah, have another flavor of the month extraction shooter. Marathon doesn't look to be a Highguard/Concord level of flop, but I don't think it will keep a healthy enough playerbase willing to spend money on microtransactions to keep the lights on.
 
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