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Marathon Releases March 5 '26 - $39.99

asdasdasdbb said:
You can play the game solo. How well... we'll see.

One thing I am wondering about is whether Bungie would consider doing an offline mode eventually. Or if that is even realistic.
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No... guys its an exctraction pvp game. Its not a sp game, nor a pve game. Some of you really need to read up about the game before jumping in and expecting something totally different :D
 
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Gamer_By_Proxy said:
Haven't played it. Can't tell if it's just a handful of diehards on here with a boner or real momentum yet.
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Can check comments on YT, reddit etc. Could all be astroturfed - who knows - but it does seem like genuine momentum is building up and people are becoming more positive, at least compared to even a few months ago.

I do have a boner, though.
 
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PvP first focus is the main reason marathon has my attention. Bungie do a wonderful job always trying to expand and innovate within Destiny and Destiny 2 with expansions.

Sure by now people are done with D2, but it means marathon should have years of road map content to be excited for. I just need to know how ranked works..
 
Arsic said:
PvP first focus is the main reason marathon has my attention. Bungie do a wonderful job always trying to expand and innovate within Destiny and Destiny 2 with expansions.

Sure by now people are done with D2, but it means marathon should have years of road map content to be excited for. I just need to know how ranked works..
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Yeah im not sure how they gonna do ranked in this one. I think the first update will come 2-3 weeks after launch with ranked mode and the 4th map
 
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Luipadre said:
Yeah im not sure how they gonna do ranked in this one. I think the first update will come 2 weeks after launch with ranked mode and the 4th map
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I would trust Bungie to do it given their halo pedigree and Destiny 1 PvP was good fun too.

I am just curious how rank is determined, separate ranks for solo vs groups, and what's my incentive to grind it?
 
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clarky said:
Its not a shame. Single player campaigns barring a few outliers offer noting to the table.

Aside from Halo CE, TF2 and maybe a couple of others then they are nothing more than an after thought
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There are still plenty of single-player FPS games at the AA and indie level. I feel pretty well-served because you don't need a huge budget and AAA production values to capture what's great about FPS games - good movement, good gunplay, good music. A lot of the best FPS games in recent years simply could not have been made at the blockbuster level, and I don't know what that would bring to the table anyway. Lack of interesting concepts/rough edges and lamer storytelling to appeal to the masses?

At the AAA level, FPS campaigns are an obviously a hard sell. Most of the FPS campaigns people look back on fondly were part of a larger package that also included multiplayer. A lot of people never touched campaigns. Bungie's Halo campaigns are some of my favorite gaming experiences ever, but ask the average dudebro and a lot of them will say they only played the multiplayer. That approach of making one game with two halves just isn't feasible anymore, if it was, we'd still be seeing it. SP and MP crowds are increasingly segregated and they want different and opposing things. CoD still does both, but those campaigns have been a joke for a while now. Doom had a couple successes (admittedly they did have multiplayer up to Dark Ages, but nobody cared), but soft sales of Dark Ages showed the limits of this approach (game pass didn't help, but I know plenty of people who felt this way regardless). Outside of places like GAF I'm not sure there's a huge audience who wants to pay $60 or $70 for a ~15 hour FPS campaign with modern high-end production values. Bungie has always been multiplayer-focused so this approach makes total sense for them.

Bungie should bring back this ad campaign. "How will it ruin your life?" has always been their ambition. Destiny definitely ruined a few lives.

monkeyboycolor2.png
 
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clarky said:
There isn't a shit one. Recon I think for starters for me. Spoiling the stealth party is my number one aim.
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Do you guys see it like this?

Lowest skill shell to highest skill shell...

Recon
Triage
Assassin
Thief
Destroyer
Vandal

Always thought Overwatch was brilliant with how they made certain characters super easy to play (for low skill players).
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Do you guys see it like this?

Lowest skill shell to highest skill shell...

Recon
Triage
Assassin
Thief
Destroyer
Vandal

Always thought Overwatch was brilliant with how they made certain characters super easy to play (for low skill players).
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I feel like Recon and Destroyer are solid in those spots but the others will vary greatly depending on player skill. Those two are more straightforward and rigid, the rest will require adaptation depending on how the battle is turning out.
 
Luipadre said:
Their old names were much better imo :(
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The names are still there in-game right? On various skins? Like "Glitch" is a Vandal skin and so on. At least that's what I heard somewhere. I'm sure the community will keep the old names alive regardless, though. A lot of the original names roll off the tongue much easier.
 
Assassins gonna be the biggest skill gap for sure.

Easy to mess up, and mind games are rewarded.
 
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clarky said:
Its not a shame. Single player campaigns barring a few outliers offer noting to the table.

Aside from Halo CE, TF2 and maybe a couple of others then they are nothing more than an after thought
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I can think of many great sp fps games that I have really enjoyed, including Goldeneye, Half-Life 2, Resistance FOM, Killzone 2, Halo, Timesplitters, Medal Of Honor, early COD, amongst many others. Most of them have also had decent multiplayer modes. A proper package worth the money.

Devs have become too lazy to create a sp shooter of substance, and because the money is in multiplayer games now. HL-3 would take effort, hence why it hasn't already been released. There is still hope for that one though.

I just find it very sad that those of us with only have a passing interest in online shooters have to miss out. Hell, I'd take a remake of the Resistance games in a heartbeat. Hopefully the Halo remake sells well enough to raise a few eyebrows.
 
Markio128 said:
I can think of many great sp fps games that I have really enjoyed, including Goldeneye, Half-Life 2, Resistance FOM, Killzone 2, Halo, Timesplitters, Medal Of Honor, early COD, amongst many others. Most of them have also had decent multiplayer modes. A proper package worth the money.

Devs have become too lazy to create a sp shooter of substance, and because the money is in multiplayer games now. HL-3 would take effort, hence why it hasn't already been released. There is still hope for that one though.

I just find it very sad that those of us with only have a passing interest in online shooters have to miss out. Hell, I'd take a remake of the Resistance games in a heartbeat. Hopefully the Halo remake sells well enough to raise a few eyebrows.
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Genuine question: What would you like to see in "a singleplayer shooter of substance"? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious and want to spark some discussion, because I don't see much left for traditional FPS campaigns to do. But there's still a lot of AA and indie shooters trying interesting things that wouldn't be possible in the AAA space, not enough room for risk. Games like Ultrakill and Fallen Aces and more niche, experimental games like Beyond Citadel are still thriving. Alyx was the next big step for FPS and was niche by definition. But I'm hoping Valve continues down that path.

How do you make a big-budget campaign shooter and make it worth the $60 or $70 price tag for the average gamer? The latest Doom showed it's a tough sell. Do you make it longer? How long can an FPS be before it gets tedious? Do you make it "replayable"? How? Part of what's great about most classic FPS campaigns is how you can blast through them in a single weekend. What would a campaign reboot of Marathon look like, specifically? I love the original games more than most people here and I don't know what it would look like. The last thing I want is some classic IP I love being forced into the generic framework of "mid-2020s game experience." I don't want "Doom reboot, but with the Pfhor".

Almost all the games you listed had multiplayer components and for at least a few of them, multiplayer was more important/popular than the dedicated singleplayer campaigns and was a huge reason why these games found success to begin with. That shorter campaign length I mentioned was usually justified because PvP and PvE multiplayer modes were also part of the package. But expectations are different now. We can argue about why and what it's done to the industry overall, but it is what it is. Multiplayer-oriented gamers want more depth and progression and years of support, but the single-player AAA space is increasingly being squeezed by the production costs and timelines of modern graphical fidelity and game scope. AAA games are often more watered-down and bland than ever because they have to reach the widest possible audience. These facts are simply not conducive to making a single/multiplayer FPS package the old-fashioned way. We'd be seeing at least a few examples. Laziness, though? I really don't see the case for it. If anything, Bungie has chosen the risker, more difficult approach here.

At the end of the day I still sympathize, I love single-player FPS campaigns too, but it's not that simple.
 
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CowboyLou said:
Genuine question: What would you like to see in "a singleplayer shooter of substance"? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious and want to spark some discussion, because I don't see much left for traditional FPS campaigns to do. But there's still a lot of AA and indie shooters trying interesting things that wouldn't be possible in the AAA space, not enough room for risk. Games like Ultrakill and Fallen Aces and more niche, experimental games like Beyond Citadel are still thriving. Alyx was the next big step for FPS and was niche by definition. But I'm hoping Valve continues down that path.

How do you make a big-budget campaign shooter and make it worth the $60 or $70 price tag? The latest Doom showed it's a tough sell. Do you make it longer? How long can an FPS be before it gets tedious? Do you make it "replayable"? How? Part of what's great about most classic FPS campaigns is how you can blast through them in a single weekend. What would a campaign reboot of Marathon look like, specifically? I love the original games more than most people here and I don't know what it would look like. The last thing I want is some classic IP I love being forced into the generic framework of "mid-2020s game experience." I don't want "Doom reboot, but with the Pfhor".

Almost all the games you listed had multiplayer components and for at least a few of them, multiplayer was more important/popular than the dedicated singleplayer campaigns and was a huge reason why these games found success to begin with. That shorter campaign length I mentioned was usually justified because PvP and PvE multiplayer modes were also part of the package. But expectations are different now. We can argue about why and what it's done to the industry overall, but it is what it is. Multiplayer-oriented gamers want more depth and progression and years of support, but the single-player AAA space is increasingly being squeezed by the production costs and timelines of modern graphical fidelity and game size. These facts are simple not conducive to making a single/multiplayer FPS package the old-fashioned way. We'd be seeing at least a few examples. Laziness, though? I really don't see the case for it. If anything, Bungie has chosen the risker, more difficult approach here.

At the end of the day I still sympathize, but it's not that simple.
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Well, Halo on the OG Xbox was replay-able because it was fun, had great enemy AI and an engaging campaign. Goldeneye was replay-able because each mission had different difficulties with additional objectives. Half-Life 2 had great storytelling and physics and I replayed the fuck out of it purely because it was so impressively made and fun to play.

The blueprints for making a worthwhile sp shooter are already there and it genuinely staggers me that nobody is building on them anymore.

I hope for a renaissance similar to the Souls genre.
 
Markio128 said:
Well, Halo on the OG Xbox was replay-able because it was fun, had great enemy AI and an engaging campaign. Goldeneye was replay-able because each mission had different difficulties with additional objectives. Half-Life 2 had great storytelling and physics and I replayed the fuck out of it purely because it was so impressively made and fun to play.

The blueprints for making a worthwhile sp shooter are already there and it genuinely staggers me that nobody is building on them anymore.

I hope for a renaissance similar to the Souls genre.
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Souls games didn't have a renaissance. They got big and they've stayed big. But genres do come in and out of fashion based on changing audience tastes and technology and what's feasible to produce, always have always will. So maybe we'll get exactly what you want some day. I just don't know what it would look like. You named games you like that are 20-25 years old. What would that look like now? If Halo came out these days it would get lambasted for its "short" 8-hour campaign and "shallow" multiplayer relative to modern tastes. Half-Life 2 is a 10-15 hour game that's the same every time you play it. I love Half-Life 2. But how do you make and sell Half-Life 2 in 2026? Based on the games you replied to me with, I'm assuming you were gaming at least as early as the 6th gen, so you're probably a little older than me. This forum trends older. I get the appeal of these classic FPS games, I'd name quite a few of them among my all-time favorites. But mass tastes have changed, we saw this with Doom: The Dark Ages. "Microsoft wants $70 for a 15-hour singleplayer FPS campaign?!" And that had optional exploration, challenges, collectables, stuff a lot of older FPS games didn't, yet a lot of gamers didn't feel the package was worth it despite the tremendous effort and talent that went into it. The game itself is awesome, quality wasn't the problem. So how does this experience become relevant again? Sell it for less? But these kind of production values demand a premium dev budget and premium price tag, it is what it is. I've seen estimates that Doom Eternal cost well over $100 mil, maybe $150 mil. Half-Life 2 had some of the highest production values for its time, it had a premium price tag to match. Mass audiences used to go insane for FPS campaigns. Not so much anymore. Half-Life 3 will do huge numbers when it finally releases, but it's Half-Life 3. Other than that I don't know how you make more people interested in this kind of game again. Not the point of financially supporting them to make them viable at the scale you want.

And I'll add that applies to me too. I love singleplayer FPS campaigns. And yet, other than Valve's VR experiments. I don't know where they go from here.

I'm not targeting all this at you. Just spitballing. I'd love for others to chime in too.
 
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Markio128 said:
I can think of many great sp fps games that I have really enjoyed, including Goldeneye, Half-Life 2, Resistance FOM, Killzone 2, Halo, Timesplitters, Medal Of Honor, early COD, amongst many others. Most of them have also had decent multiplayer modes. A proper package worth the money.

Devs have become too lazy to create a sp shooter of substance, and because the money is in multiplayer games now. HL-3 would take effort, hence why it hasn't already been released. There is still hope for that one though.

I just find it very sad that those of us with only have a passing interest in online shooters have to miss out. Hell, I'd take a remake of the Resistance games in a heartbeat. Hopefully the Halo remake sells well enough to raise a few eyebrows.
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Most of those games you mentioned are decades old. I don't think that devs have become lazy, just that the dev's are focusing their efforts in what the market wants.

Sure it would be nice for Marathon to have a campaign of TF2 or Halo CE's standards but the project would cost millions more to make for a mode that most would play for 8 hours and move on.

Brilliant campaigns are an expection to the rule, most are mid at best. Look at Battlefield 6 and Blops 7 the only thing those campaigns achieved was to bring down the review scores. I'd rather those resources be diverted into making the MP better.
 
While I'm still unsure of whether I want to buy into an extraction shooter (the pre-order prices I can see are currently looking decent, though), going off what's been shown in the marketing ramp-up over the past month compared to before, I'm more hopeful for Marathon now than I was a year ago.

What's really going to be the deciding factor for me is the free preview weekend (I'm very interested, and I wish there were two), which is going to critical to get more people onboard, if not to at least check out Marathon in its updated state.
 
Neon Xenon said:
While I'm still unsure of whether I want to buy into an extraction shooter (the pre-order prices I can see are currently looking decent, though), going off what's been shown in the marketing ramp-up over the past month compared to before, I'm more hopeful for Marathon now than I was a year ago.

What's really going to be the deciding factor for me is the free preview weekend (I'm very interested, and I wish there were two), which is going to critical to get more people onboard, if not to at least check out Marathon in its updated state.
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Yeah just try the free weekend and see how you liking it. Will be overwhelming at first, especially the loot and the tutorial is pretty ass unless they changed it since october so you need a few hours to warm up :)
 
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Yamisan said:
So far we have concord, high guard and next this to complete the trio of concern flops.
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Bungie delayed the game and are tweaking it to ensure they have a product people might actually enjoy. Bungie and Sony simply cannot afford for this to fail. This is do or die for Bungie. It'll never reach Arc Raiders, but Bungie's core is too strong for this to ever be Concord. I don't think it'll set the charts on fire, but I suspect it'll find a core audience and who enjoy it for what it is.
 
ZehDon said:
Bungie delayed the game and are tweaking it to ensure they have a product people might actually enjoy. Bungie and Sony simply cannot afford for this to fail. This is do or die for Bungie. It'll never reach Arc Raiders, but Bungie's core is too strong for this to ever be Concord. I don't think it'll set the charts on fire, but I suspect it'll find a core audience and who enjoy it for what it is.
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Bungie hasn't made anything good in over 20 years.
 
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