Marathon Alpha Impressions

The visual style looks terrible let alone its other issues, this is going to be DoA.

F2P is their only hope for a month or two to recoup before players forget about it completely.
 
I went into these Marathon impressions with an open mind, but by Jove, I just can't get past the art direction. It's like a fever dream where Mirror's Edge, Destiny, Splatoon had a horrific car crash which was then uploaded to Instagram as part of a dubious highlight reel.

What on earth were they thinking when they greenlit this ghastly aesthetic and those character designs? I didn't stick around long enough to fairly judge the gameplay but honestly, I saw enough to know it's not for me.
 
Last edited:
Sony should just stick to SP games.

Aside from GT and baseball (two games going back to PS1), it seems anytime they've tried putting out big budget MP games they fail. As odd as it seems, some of their big MP hits arent even first party. It's partnering up with studios that made Fall Guys and Rocket League as PS+ downloads.

And by the looks of Marathon and sentiment, there's no way people are amped on it like the shit loads of players and money they made from their current Destiny games like it's a continuation of their shooter game legacy..... Halo --> D1 --> D2 --> Marathon.

Even buying out Bungie to latch onto Destiny 2 (and their game in development which is Marathon), the second they buy them D2 starts tanking and Marathon doesn't look like it'll be big hit. But you never know. Maybe when it launches in 5 months it'll have tons of gamers.
 
Can we get the memes ready now? I see the potential in this one, oh mama...

Finish Line Win GIF
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Sony should just stick to SP games.

Aside from GT and baseball (two games going back to PS1), it seems anytime they've tried putting out big budget MP games they fail. As odd as it seems, some of their big MP hits arent even first party. It's partnering up with studios that made Fall Guys and Rocket League as PS+ downloads.

And by the looks of Marathon and sentiment, there's no way people are amped on it like the shit loads of players and money they made from their current Destiny games like it's a continuation of their shooter game legacy..... Halo --> D1 --> D2 --> Marathon.

Even buying out Bungie to latch onto Destiny 2 (and their game in development which is Marathon), the second they buy them D2 starts tanking and Marathon doesn't look like it'll be big hit. But you never know. Maybe when it launches in 5 months it'll have tons of gamers.
Click to expand...

That's what I find so weird about the overall platform/publisher/game/genre/developer choices for this title. There is a huge market segment crying out for single/PvE/campaign style content and it's very similar in terms of dev, design and technical creation time/pipelines/costs etc but they go PvP route in place of storied consistent content. How many D1&2 strikes, raids, lairs and public events did gamers persist with for years? How much outcry did Halo Infinite have for more single player/coop content at launch and post launc?

Literally Bungie could easily shifted game and development focus to pumping out monetised story, coop, MMO, content etc and just made bank. There is far less backlash to single player/coop games and the Destiny engine/networking lends itself to huge in roads here. Take some of those public events with 3/6/9 x 3 man squads and it ran great. Honestly you give me a solid quarterly release schedule and regional servers for Destiny or Halo and we're golden. I'll sub every month, no troubles.
 
I watched some streams and I think it looks garbage and gameplay does not differ enough from other free live service games to make a dent in that space. Bungie's reputation is also in the shitter.
Sony should brace for another live service flop. This one also came with a 1bn price tag of acquiring Bungie. What a waste. A whole generation wasted on this shit.
 
There's no way we are looking at 4-5 years of work in progress in this alpha. It comes across as something done in 1-2 years max. Some aspects of the art direction even resemble the gray box texture developers use.

according to the A. I. s, 115 devs worked on the initial release of Apex legends, the finals under 100, around the same for Escape form Tarkov.. ..marathon is being worked by 300 Devs....💀

It's clear Bungie is too intoxicated by the smell of their own farts... nah, bruh, I think there's a high chance Sony ends up canceling this game before release. In a post Concord world... i don't think Sony is willing to find out anymore.

The brand damage is even more embarrassing than losing money
 
MayauMiao said:
I know its limited but let's see if they can maintain the numbers or testers will start to abandon it.

MrcjnTn.jpeg
Click to expand...
The alpha runs for 2 weeks?
I assume numbers will drop by at least 50%.

Skimming through comments on youtube on various streams/videos of the alpha, the community still seems rather split on the gameplay.

It also depends on which streamers you look at, as followers/demographics can differ quite a lot.
 
Last edited:
ChorizoPicozo said:
There's no way we are looking at 4-5 years of work in progress in this alpha. It comes across as something done in 1-2 years max. Some aspects of the art direction even resemble the gray box texture developers use.
Click to expand...

Definitely agree on this. Does the current reveal really look like four years worth of effort? They have Destiny base animations. They would have had to animate abilities etc. but essentially most of the work is creating a map and assets. There is no way creating grimoires or codex takes that long.

Reminds me of the old source map SDK with more colours and textured environmental detail.

fy_strongholds_unlimited_24773_2.jpg


I'm more betting most of that time has gone into the economy, store and MTX which we are yet to see.

I'm not fussed if the game isn't for me, but this is a game for nobody. People will point to a few streamers and say look they like it after a few hours. The overall reception to this is significantly negative, the willingness of players to outright dismiss paying for/trying the game is high, and none of the streamers will be adding this as their main game or rotation without a huge raft of changes.

We can argue between ourselves as to why that is, but ultimately the problem here is why Bungie thought this type of game would land and be a success. The most generous receptions have been 'I'll give it a go'. If your kid loves cheese and you serve them turnip, don't be surprised if they leave the turnip uneaten.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
There's no way we are looking at 4-5 years of work in progress in this alpha. It comes across as something done in 1-2 years max. Some aspects of the art direction even resemble the gray box texture developers use.

according to the A. I. s, 115 devs worked on the initial release of Apex legends, the finals under 100, around the same for Escape form Tarkov.. ..marathon is being worked by 300 Devs....💀

It's clear Bungie is too intoxicated by the smell of their own farts... nah, bruh, I think there's a high chance Sony ends up canceling this game before release. In a post Concord world... i don't think Sony is willing to find out anymore.

The brand damage is even more embarrassing than losing money
Click to expand...
What I see with Marathon is Bungie hoping they can lower community expectations from a production point of view to get the game generating revenue as fast as possible. It's pretty clear they're trying to re-calibrate expectations for the MVP (minimum viable product) around their desired level of production to achieve studio sustainability. Four characters and three maps for a paid multiplayer shooter reeks of desperation from management. Their leadership was apparently spooked by the poor reception and lifted the NDA, clearly hoping to get positive word of mouth across social from their hand-selected players - but that seems to have also not worked, given what's trending about Marathon. For all this negativity, it's worth noting that all of this is to create a game that's affordable - something Bungie has to be right now, given their position. Rather than trying to produce huge levels of AAA quality, well designed, high fidelity content, they've shifted to producing minimal levels of AA, low fidelity, quickly designed content. With Marathon, I'd wager they're aiming to produce less designed content faster, as a means of getting the cost of their game down to get their studio back in the black. We'll see how that works out, I guess.

Killjoy-NL said:
It seems that Bungie will improve visuals the upcoming months and the alpha is still WIP:
Click to expand...

Uh huh... 343i said the same thing about Halo Infinite before the game was delayed an entire year, they spent millions re-doing the visuals, and then the studio was gutted.
 
Last edited:
Killjoy-NL said:
It seems that Bungie will improve visuals the upcoming months and the alpha is still WIP:
Click to expand...

The game releases in mere 4 months. Anyone expecting a huge visual upgrade in that time is delusional. These devs are notoriously slow and they've supposedly worked on this game for 4-5 years already. These last four months won't see any significant changes. Just the usual Bungie damage control. And yes the visual quality of this game is absolutely awful. Looks several generations old.
 
Klosshufvud said:
The game releases in mere 4 months. Anyone expecting a huge visual upgrade in that time is delusional. These devs are notoriously slow and they've supposedly worked on this game for 4-5 years already. These last four months won't see any significant changes. Just the usual Bungie damage control. And yes the visual quality of this game is absolutely awful. Looks several generations old.
Click to expand...
Just posting it here.

As for visuals, we have no idea what they're working on.

I assume that as they test the gameplay mechanics in an alpha environment, the team is continuing work on other aspects in the background.
But if not, then yeah, they will have a really tough sell with this.

Gameplay looks good and really solid, but the world feels real barren and lifeless as well watching all the livestreams.
Interiors look good though.
 
ZehDon said:
Uh huh... 343i said the same thing about Halo Infinite before the game was delayed an entire year, they spent millions re-doing the visuals, and then the studio was gutted.
Click to expand...
Sure, but I don't judge a developer based on what a completely different developer did.

That's like saying I don't expect much from Ronaldo because Messi didn't score a goal last week.
 
Killjoy-NL said:
Sure, but I don't judge a developer based on what a completely different developer did.

That's like saying I don't expect much from Ronaldo because Messi didn't score a goal last week.
Click to expand...
Yeah and we have 7 years of Destiny 2 to show us all that needs to be said about Bungie. And really, any western AAA game is unable to undergo massive visual uplifts in mere 4 months time. That would be unpredecented by even the most prestigious studios, let alone the more mediocre ones. I think this studio is living way past expiry date now.
 
Klosshufvud said:
Yeah and we have 7 years of Destiny 2 to show us all that needs to be said about Bungie. And really, any western AAA game is unable to undergo massive visual uplifts in mere 4 months time. That would be unpredecented by even the most prestigious studios, let alone the more mediocre ones. I think this studio is living way past expiry date now.
Click to expand...
Go look up my post history regarding Bungie and Destiny.

I'm well aware that they're being run by a bunch of monkeys over there.

Edit:

In fact, I've played D1 for about 2.7K hours.
I've played D2 for about 25 hours.

That's my take on how they handled the Destiny franchise.
 
Last edited:
Killjoy-NL said:
Go look up my post history regarding Bungie and Destiny.

I'm well aware that they're being run by a bunch of monkeys over there.

Edit:

In fact, I've played D1 for about 2.7K hours.
I've played D2 for about 25 hours.

That's my take on how they handled the Destiny franchise.
Click to expand...
Sorry did not mean to imply you're shilling. Just my tiredness of a studio that promises and never delivers and lives off past accomplishments in which most of the current dev team had no part in creating.
 
Klosshufvud said:
Sorry did not mean to imply you're shilling. Just my tiredness of a studio that promises and never delivers and lives off past accomplishments in which most of the current dev team had no part in creating.
Click to expand...
No harm done.

My posts sometimes come across as more blunt/harsh than intended.

I feel ya.
 
ZehDon said:
What I see with Marathon is Bungie hoping they can lower community expectations from a production point of view to get the game generating revenue as fast as possible. It's pretty clear they're trying to re-calibrate expectations for the MVP (minimum viable product) around their desired level of production to achieve studio sustainability.
Click to expand...
me reading the bold:
IYSVuP5.gif

They hyped the livestream a week in advance, had an AR game running, and even hired an Oscar and Emmy winning director to create a cinematic CGI short, they invited influencers and even the doritos pope himself. then look at the livestream itself; they are glazing all over themselves and taking about marathon like it's high art.


ZehDon said:
Four characters and three maps for a paid multiplayer shooter reeks of desperation from management. Their leadership was apparently spooked by the poor reception and lifted the NDA, clearly hoping to get positive word of mouth across social from their hand-selected players - but that seems to have also not worked, given what's trending about Marathon. For all this negativity, it's worth noting that all of this is to create a game that's affordable - something Bungie has to be right now, given their position. Rather than trying to produce huge levels of AAA quality, well designed, high fidelity content, they've shifted to producing minimal levels of AA, low fidelity, quickly designed content.
Click to expand...
.... 300 people are working in this game.

The Finals, Escape form tarkov, Apex legends, were made by around 100 devs


ZehDon said:
With Marathon, I'd wager they're aiming to produce less designed content faster, as a means of getting the cost of their game down to get their studio back in the black. We'll see how that works out, I guess.
Click to expand...
We know Marathon has had a troubled development; its vision and direction have changed, and it even got delayed by a year after the initial teaser
my bet is this:
After Concord, Sony's not playing around anymore. This alpha was pushed by Sony to assess the game's reception and decide whether it's worth investing even more money to bring it to the finish line; something that would require an ongoing, multi-year commitment because I don't think Sony is in the frame of mind to release another game only to shut it down two weeks later. The damage Concord did to the brand is, in itself, a bigger liability than losing money.
 
adamsapple said:
Aim assist for Mouse?

That's a first.

And it looks like it's fully magnetized to the enemy.

Wtf are they thinking?
Click to expand...
Halo Infinite does something similar. You can turn it off in both games, although I think I this on is on by default which is a bit weird.
 
Last edited:
GHG said:
How is this any different to the aimbot that's been in COD for controller users since forever?

Click to expand...

The clip is of someone playing on mouse and keyboard, not on a controller. This is actually really bad for cross-play and it completely subtracts skill out of the equation as well. A few streamers complained about this in the closed door tests but they clearly didn't listen.
 
ChorizoPicozo said:
There's no way we are looking at 4-5 years of work in progress in this alpha. It comes across as something done in 1-2 years max. Some aspects of the art direction even resemble the gray box texture developers use.

according to the A. I. s, 115 devs worked on the initial release of Apex legends, the finals under 100, around the same for Escape form Tarkov.. ..marathon is being worked by 300 Devs....💀

It's clear Bungie is too intoxicated by the smell of their own farts... nah, bruh, I think there's a high chance Sony ends up canceling this game before release. In a post Concord world... i don't think Sony is willing to find out anymore.

The brand damage is even more embarrassing than losing money
Click to expand...

At this point I'm convinced they told/persuaded Naughty Dog to cancel factions (which also would have had an "extraction shooter" style mode) out of sabotage.

They probably saw what they had cooking and thought "shit we can't compete with this" so did everything in their power to make it go away.
 
GHG said:
At this point I'm convinced they told/persuaded Naughty Dog to cancel factions (which also would have had an "extraction shooter" style mode) out of sabotage.

They probably saw what they had cooking and thought "shit we can't compete with this" so did everything in their power to make it go away.
Click to expand...
sony has killed studios for far less.
 
GHG said:
Honestly, the damage they've done since their acquisition is criminal.

They are set to release this crap, consulted on Concord, and got Factions cancelled. They are either high or it's all intentional sabotage.
Click to expand...
Weird take.

Concord would've been shit from the get-go and the deal was made by Shuhei Yoshida before Sony acquired Bungie.
Bungie won't have had much to do with the shitshow surrounding Concord.

Factions being put on hold was a decision by ND who didn't feel like they could offer the required longterm support and they need everyone on Intergalactic.
 
Killjoy-NL said:
Weird take.

Concord would've been shit from the get-go and the deal was made by Shuhei Yoshida before Sony acquired Bungie.
Bungie won't have had much to do with the shitshow surrounding Concord.

Factions being put on hold was a decision by ND who didn't feel like they could offer the required longterm support and they need everyone on Intergalactic.
Click to expand...

Doing the same shit you did for Concord prior to release are you?

It's not a "weird take" when everything I've said is documented. Bungie consulted on all the GAAS titles Sony had in development after their acquisition.

"I would back us to do [live-service games] ourselves, but when you have the potential to have a partner like Bungie who has been there, done it all before, learned the lessons and have got this wonderful, brilliant team who is there and has the potential to help us... we think we can take something that would have taken a certain number of years, and significantly decrease the time it will take to get it right."
Click to expand...


www.gamesindustry.biz

PlayStation: Bungie deal is about multiplatform, live-service games

PlayStation's acquisition of Bungie may not result in exclusive PS5 games, but it will allow the platform holder to sig…
www.gamesindustry.biz www.gamesindustry.biz

"The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space," Totoki said.
Click to expand...

techcrunch.com

After buying Bungie, Sony goes all-in on live service games

Sony plans to launch 12 different live service games, integrating technology and expertise from its acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie.
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com

And:

hwhNxyt.jpeg



Specifically on Factions:

"Sony has invested heavily in "games as a service," or video games designed to be monetized beyond their initial sales through ongoing purchases. As part of that push it asked another of its video-game studios, Seattle-based Bungie, to evaluate the games across its portfolio. Bungie raised questions about the The Last of Us multiplayer project's ability to keep players engaged for a long period of time, which led to the reassessment."
Click to expand...

www.bloomberg.com

‘Last of Us’ Multiplayer Video Game Faces Setbacks at Sony

Weaknesses were found in the game, even as the HBO series became a hit.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
 
Last edited:
GHG said:
Doing the same shit you did for Concord prior to release are you?

It's not a "weird take" when everything I've said is documented. Bungie consulted on all the GAAS titles Sony had in development after their acquisition.
Click to expand...

Enlighten me.

What is that "same shit" I did? Not shitting on the game?
GHG said:
www.gamesindustry.biz

PlayStation: Bungie deal is about multiplatform, live-service games

PlayStation's acquisition of Bungie may not result in exclusive PS5 games, but it will allow the platform holder to sig…
www.gamesindustry.biz www.gamesindustry.biz



techcrunch.com

After buying Bungie, Sony goes all-in on live service games

Sony plans to launch 12 different live service games, integrating technology and expertise from its acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie.
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com

And:

hwhNxyt.jpeg



Specifically on Factions:



www.bloomberg.com

‘Last of Us’ Multiplayer Video Game Faces Setbacks at Sony

Weaknesses were found in the game, even as the HBO series became a hit.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
Click to expand...
Should've been more clear about Factions.
Yes, Bungie was consulted, but ND didnt feel like they could offer longterm support. Not moving forward with Factions has little to do with Bungie.

Concord would've been a disaster without Bungie being consulted as well.
 
I was lukewarm after the reveal, but i wanted to see more uncut footage. Now that the alpha is out, i think this will be a colossal flop. 300 dev scratching their balls for 4 years and this is the result. Bungies aquisition was dumb af back then and now it seems even more dumb. Sony wasted a huge amount of money and we pay the price for it.

Such a terrible fucking ps generation, a complete disaster coming from previous gen.
 
tTHANOSs said:
Yeah playstation should have supported factions 2 over this.
Click to expand...
Clearly. Factions was a great mode, already done and polished, with great artstyle and fun to play. They would have added some new nonbinary characters to please their new audience, added a few maps and the game would have been done.

And Hulst litteraly killed it for 4 Billion dollars Concord 2.0. But he already killed Killzone which had a great MP mode, the most fun I had with a MP game bar Fortnite. So he killed 2 great MP modes Playstation already. Tragically those modes (which could have become standalone games) were actually original and they replaced them with soulless wannabe clones.

It's tragic.
 
Last edited:
Physiognomonics said:
Clearly. Factions was a great mode, already done and polished, with great artstyle and fun to play. They would have added TLOU2 nonbinary characters to please their new audience, added a few maps and the game would have been done.

And Hulst litteraly killed it for 4 Billion dollars Concord 2.0. But he already killed Killzone which had a great MP mode, the most fun I had with a MP game bar Fortnite. So he killed 2 great MP modes Playstation already. Tragically those modes (which could have become standalone games) were actually original and fun and they replaced it with Fotnite / Apex / whatever is currently earning money clones.
Click to expand...
If ND can't support Factions 2 long-term, there is no point in releasing it.

The whole point of live service games is long-term support.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Marathon Alpha invites going out (cannot share codes, no friend invites)
28
2K
Hideous Snake replied
  • Poll
Marathon or ARC Raiders? [POLL]
2
63
2K
Black_Stride replied
  • Poll
Will Marathon be delayed/pushed back?
15
16
Generic replied
Marathon 'rounds' will be 25 minutes
1
440
Killjoy-NL replied
  • Poll
Why Men_in_Boxes is wrong about Marathon...
2 3 4
157
5K
EN250 replied
Top Bottom