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New Marathon Leaks from Playtest 3...

It was funny hearing all the media outlets say "Marathon might be too casual for competitive players" and then you watch that and go "Nope."
 
Actually I've just watched some of the other clips and I just don't like the art. Especially the all-important weapon models. They look like a mishmash of Roblox and big lego chunks.
 
Generic said:
This game has great aesthetics.
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hmmmm
 
DirtInUrEye said:
Actually I've just watched some of the other clips and I just don't like the art. Especially the all-important weapon models. They look like a mishmash of Roblox and big lego chunks.
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yeah weapons and skins looks god awful in the game sadly. Game itself is fun and the art is not bad
 
Luipadre said:
yeah weapons and skins looks god awful in the game sadly. Game itself is fun and the art is not bad
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Some of the interiors actually look quite crispy and polished, I could dig it. But as soon as the player goes back outside I dramatically cannot stand the sight of the geometry, it's almost repellent. I draw comparisons with Roblox as that is also how that game's visual make me feel.
 
When there's a lot of characters in a small building, it all falls apart. The blocky unshaded color aesthetic works against simple legitbility and it's just rainbow vomit. This is like a project made by people who like clean minimalist aesthetic and have no idea how to achieve it.
 
DirtInUrEye said:
I've lambasted this game's visual choices no end, but for the first time ever this clip actually makes the graphics look quite good, imo.
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Ehh, I mean since day 1, I haven't been impressed. It's really the material quality, textures and the lack of raytracing that makes it look so bad. This type of environment needs its so badly. It just looks so meh.
 
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simpatico said:
When there's a lot of characters in a small building, it all falls apart. The blocky unshaded color aesthetic works against simple legitbility and it's just rainbow vomit. This is like a project made by people who like clean minimalist aesthetic and have no idea how to achieve it.
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It's easier to understand things when the game has a lot of colors than when it's grey/brown.
 
FalconPunch said:
Ehh, I mean since day 1, I haven't been impressed. It's really the material quality, textures and the lack of raytracing that makes it look so bad. This type of environment needs its so badly. It just looks so meh.
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There isn't enough PBR or ambient occlusion, so it all winds up looking quite rough and crude. Others call it style, but will those "others" be in large enough numbers to make the game successful? We'll find out soon enough. There are a lot of films that also present chiefly as artistic visual exercises, but generally they're only screened in small art house theatres on the fringes of cinema.
 


This moment looks like a weird fusion of The Finals and a Rec Room shooter distraction on Quest 2. I can't get my head around how some people think it looks good.
 
Generic said:
It's easier to understand things when the game has a lot of colors than when it's grey/brown.
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In theory sure. The most important thing is being able to make out human-shaped outlines. For my eyes that all falls apart in a way I haven't seen in any other game. I think it's the flatness of the colors.
 
Negotiator101 said:
Yeah Raiders is on absolute fire and ain't stopping either. What Embark have done is pretty incredible and it's making other extraction shooters look very uninteresting and that's being nice.
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A huge percentage of what makes these games fun is that the player is constantly wagering what they have vs what upcoming actions are worth taking. The joy is not so much the spectacle as it is making decisions.

What this results in are people who are clueless to the genre, assessing it without the proper lense. It's like showing someone a 30 second Star Wars clip from halfway through the trilogy and people going "I don't get it, why are they talking?"

If you look above, there are a lot of people writing it off that have no history with the genre.
 
Hmm. I'll keep an eye.

In the meantime..

Idea for a video game: Bums in space. It's 2050. The government has started sponsoring street bums to fight it out in space. Bets can be placed. Abandoned space stations used as a sort of TV studio. Think running man meets battle royale.

😅
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
... If you look above, there are a lot of people writing it off that have no history with the genre.
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I think the opposite is ultimately going to kill Marathon: people now have history with the genre. Against games like Escape from Tarkov, or Battle Royale's like PUBG, Marathon stood out as Bungie's take on an established formula presented with a radical art design. For players who'd never touched an extraction shooter, Marathon held some allure as a little mysterious, a little unknown, and it was likely going to be their first taste of the genre. And then Arc Raiders dropped and went thermonuclear. Now, the vast majority of Marathon's potential audience will compare Marathon to that, and against a genre shifting title like Arc Raiders, Marathon honestly looks pretty dated. Graphics, gameplay, design, UI - Embark shifted the entire genre, and Marathon missed its chance. It'll be competently made and find a niche audience, but make no mistake: Embark absolutely cut it off at the knees.
 
ZehDon said:
I think the opposite is ultimately going to kill Marathon: people now have history with the genre. Against games like Escape from Tarkov, or Battle Royale's like PUBG, Marathon stood out as Bungie's take on an established formula presented with a radical art design. For players who'd never touched an extraction shooter, Marathon held some allure as a little mysterious, a little unknown, and it was likely going to be their first taste of the genre. And then Arc Raiders dropped and went thermonuclear. Now, the vast majority of Marathon's potential audience will compare Marathon to that, and against a genre shifting title like Arc Raiders, Marathon honestly looks pretty dated. Graphics, gameplay, design, UI - Embark shifted the entire genre, and Marathon missed its chance. It'll be competently made and find a niche audience, but make no mistake: Embark absolutely cut it off at the knees.
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Definitely plausible. You describe a realistic, worst case scenario for Marathon.

But it's also plausible that Marathon is different enough from ARC Raiders that it attracts its own audience. The two games play very differently from one another.

There is an intensity and focus of holding corners and hitting your shots in Marathon that ARC Raiders doesn't have.

Ultimately, this genre is so foreign and new that I don't think anyone (me included) can forecast Marathon with any certainty. We still have no idea what end game Marathon looks like. That's like judging a birthday cake before it gets its frosting.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
It's like showing someone a 30 second Star Wars clip from halfway through the trilogy and people going "I don't get it, why are they talking?"
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Except it's nothing like that. People watch movies to experience the plot, of course they'll be confused if you drop then midway into a movie.

You play a game to.. play the game. People aren't wrong if they dislike what's being shown. Yeah there's people shitting on the game just because they hate the genre but there are legitimate reasons to see that whats being shown isn't exactly comparing favorably to other games in the genre.

Arc Raiders looked impressive from the start, Marathon has rubbed people the wrong way from the start.
 
I think Marathon will find an audience when it releases, the real question is whether or not the playerbase will be large enough to make the game a success?

Arc Raiders has certainly made it much more difficult for Marathon to succeed. They might have missed their window.
 
Mengy said:
I think Marathon will find an audience when it releases, the real question is whether or not the playerbase will be large enough to make the game a success?

Arc Raiders has certainly made it much more difficult for Marathon to succeed. They might have missed their window.
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I can tell you right now that this game wont have a large mainstream playerbase so it will be a failure in Sony's book. I predict hunt showdown numbers with a niche playerbase.
 
Hero_Select said:
Except it's nothing like that. People watch movies to experience the plot, of course they'll be confused if you drop then midway into a movie.
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You misunderstand the genre.

Marathon is Star Wars. You build your character from 0 to Hero like Rey Skywalker. The analogy works because the big events build off the genre systems in the same way a plot unfolds.

Watching a generic raid in Marathon is like looking at a generic Starfighter battle. They both work better in the context of the full experience.
Hero_Select said:
You play a game to.. play the game. People aren't wrong if they dislike what's being shown. Yeah there's people shitting on the game just because they hate the genre but there are legitimate reasons to see that whats being shown isn't exactly comparing favorably to other games in the genre.
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People have gotten this genre so unbelievably wrong that their latest assessments can be filed in a seperate folder. Comment after comment of "genre saturation" and "fundamentally too hardcore" means Michael Pachter isn't alone.
Hero_Select said:
Arc Raiders looked impressive from the start, Marathon has rubbed people the wrong way from the start.
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Does Counter Strike look impressive?
 
Hero_Select said:
Arc Raiders looked impressive from the start, Marathon has rubbed people the wrong way from the start.
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Revisionist history. A lot of people were disappointed when Arc Raiders switched from PvE looter shooter to PvPvE extraction shooter.

A lot of people were also excited by the reveal trailer for Marathon.

Embark nailed the execution. That's the difference.
 
Btw, clarky clarky has repeatedly said that Marathon has a better loot pool than ARC Raiders. I didn't play enough to assess that. If he's right, that's a significantly bigger advantage than most realize. Character building and loot are pretty important in these games.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Btw, clarky clarky has repeatedly said that Marathon has a better loot pool than ARC Raiders. I didn't play enough to assess that. If he's right, that's a significantly bigger advantage than most realize. Character building and loot are pretty important in these games.
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Bungie needs to work on emphasizing and polishing the solo experience. And then make sure they balance the shells.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Definitely plausible. You describe a realistic, worst case scenario for Marathon.

But it's also plausible that Marathon is different enough from ARC Raiders that it attracts its own audience. The two games play very differently from one another.

There is an intensity and focus of holding corners and hitting your shots in Marathon that ARC Raiders doesn't have.

Ultimately, this genre is so foreign and new that I don't think anyone (me included) can forecast Marathon with any certainty. We still have no idea what end game Marathon looks like. That's like judging a birthday cake before it gets its frosting.
Click to expand...
I won't rag on the game more than I already have - the game has its fans, and they deserve the space to enjoy a game they're very much looking forward to. What I will say is this: it's developed by Bungie, so we already know the end game will be exactly the same as everything we've already seen. Bungie don't hold an Ace up their sleeves - they put it all on the table. Go back to the discourse around Destiny 2, and people were adamant that Bungie was hiding entire maps from the public, because there was just no way they'd repeat their mistakes with Destiny all over again. We've seen everything Marathon has. If you like it, great, but do not pretend that there's some big secret to reveal that will up-end everything and transform Marathon into a magical 10/10.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
A huge percentage of what makes these games fun is that the player is constantly wagering what they have vs what upcoming actions are worth taking. The joy is not so much the spectacle as it is making decisions.

What this results in are people who are clueless to the genre, assessing it without the proper lense. It's like showing someone a 30 second Star Wars clip from halfway through the trilogy and people going "I don't get it, why are they talking?"

If you look above, there are a lot of people writing it off that have no history with the genre.
Click to expand...
I'm in that boat so to speak but regardless of genre there's just something special about Arc. It's hard to put a finger on one thing as it's many things that make it so good.

From the footage I've seen of marathon it doesn't have it, even if the gameplay mechanics are great it's not showing me anything that interests me to draw me into it's world. Bungie used to be amazing at world building and lore, creating a universe bigger than the game but they unfortunately peaked with Halo.
 
ZehDon said:
What I will say is this: it's developed by Bungie, so we already know the end game will be exactly the same as everything we've already seen. Bungie don't hold an Ace up their sleeves - they put it all on the table. Go back to the discourse around Destiny 2, and people were adamant that Bungie was hiding entire maps from the public, because there was just no way they'd repeat their mistakes with Destiny all over again. We've seen everything Marathon has. If you like it, great, but do not pretend that there's some big secret to reveal that will up-end everything and transform Marathon into a magical 10/10.
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I don't subscribe to this "Bungie bad therefore everything they make is bad" kind of thinking.

Lose your faith in Destiny 2 if you'd like but Marathon is an entirely different game made by different people. It should be assessed on what it offers alone.
Negotiator101 said:
From the footage I've seen of marathon it doesn't have it, even if the gameplay mechanics are great it's not showing me anything that interests me to draw me into it's world. Bungie used to be amazing at world building and lore, creating a universe bigger than the game but they unfortunately peaked with Halo.
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That's fair, though I'm not sure if Marathons success depends on "world building and lore" as much as "build crafting and loot". Obviously it makes sense to be disappointed if you're into that kind of stuff though.
 
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I signed up for the December playtest. let's see if it is as bad as I think it will be (main concern being that Bungie once again keeps using their mediocre gunplay, which is a relic straight out of 2004, and which they refuse to improve)
 
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