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[crazyriddler]

f2p is a mistake for games like this. Marathon has more than enough quality to justify the price tag

What makes this game "higher quality" than other F2P games?

 

[Negotiator101]

Pretty much this. I don't think Arc knows what it wants to be longer term. People are saying there is no "endgame" which is true but there usually isnt in these types of games. It's kind of half in and half out at this point.

Marathon seems to have figured out what it is finally and has a seasonal loop in place. And seemingly a ranked mode. I think both will coexist nicely.

If Embark has any sense it will go for the jugular and plan for a huge update and new map around march, then Marathon might be in real trouble.

Seemingly they have a 10 year plan.

 

[HRK69]

The three genres you listed are all trends.

Yeah, fair point that anything popular can be called a trend, but I was specifically talking about the multiplayer/GAAS/extraction shooter/etc

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I'm asking myself though, what's the point? I get those weapons and just grind more Matriarchs and Queens?

The Matriarch / Queen map events are somewhat interesting but I don't think Embark believes more big spiders will cure its end game issues. Bullet sponge design feels antithetical to a game like ARC Raiders. I'm anticipating some great updates in 2026.

 

[EN250]

No gonna waste words trying to explain, this .gif will illustrate exactly what's gonna happen:

 

[Reavr]

What makes this game "higher quality" than other F2P games?

It's not built around a "friendly, friendly, friendly! Sike, let's get 'em boys" social experiment, for starters.

 

[simpatico]

At launch it will have two small but faithful audiences. The Bungie crowd and the Sony first party crowd. Both are pretty die hard and will continue to play a bad game for months on end just because of the name on the tin. How long they can be kept around remains to be seen. I know by the end of month 2 there will be difficult internal discussions about whether or not it's worth keeping the servers online. Just spitballing based on budget and pedigree, but I'm assuming this will be one of the most expensive games to run month after month for the company who owns it.

 

[yurinka]

If you look at the release announcement thread. People already treat it like its dead.

As usual in Neogaf for many highly successful games. Even when they already have been released and shown to be very successful.

 

[crazyriddler]

As usual in Neogaf for many highly successful games. Even when they already have been released and shown to be very successful.

Games that have been highly successful is hyperbole, right? Unless you consider games that have failed to recoup the companies' investment and caused their stock prices to fall to be successful.

 

[Reavr]

As usual in Neogaf for many highly successful games. Even when they already have been released and shown to be very successful.

This. This place has become DOA central. I don't even like defending Bungie, but anyone who thinks this will even remotely close to Concord deserves a clown makeup gift basket.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The lowest option being 0-99k is wild. That's a pretty massive gulf. The majority of steam PS releases don't break 100k, neither do MS games despite them being day 1.

99k is too high to be the worst option lol. That's over 100x Concord lol.

Remnant II reached 110k...but you think "under 100k" is too high for mother f***ing Marathon?!

 

[Mengy]

Thought you hated PVP?

I don't hate it, I just suck at it so I usually don't find it any fun. It's why I probably won't buy Marathon even while I love Arc Raiders to death. Marathon looks to be much more PvP focused while Arc has mechanics built in to support PvE players.

Even though Marathon isn't my kind of game, I do like how Bungie does gunplay and I even like the game's art style. I just wish it was a single player or cooperative game (like Helldivers II) rather than a competitive PvP game. Like what the original Marathon was, or even Halo.

 

[yurinka]

Games that have been highly successful is hyperbole, right? Unless you consider games that have failed to recoup the companies' investment and caused their stock prices to fall to be successful.

No, it isn't a hyperbole. I'm talking about top performing games that appear in top selling rankings, have big userbases and are very profitable. Some of them having earned several awards or nominations.

 

[salva]

Concord had a lifespan of what, 4 weeks?

So I'll say 6 weeks for Marathon until Sony demands it be delisted and it's removed from the face of the earth.

If they released this 5 years ago, there might be some hype... But this genre is done to death and unless it's a standout and doing something very unique, there's no chance and it's too late.

 

[yurinka]

Sony focused primarily on developing high-quality single-player games, which is what made fans of the brand want to buy a PS console. Resources are not unlimited, nor is the number of first-party studios, and Sony, instead of honoring what made its brand strong as a game developer, has spent an obscene amount of money on multiplayer GAAS in an attempt to join the Fortnite wave, which are also the type of players least interested in buying games.

So yeah. my wish is for Marathon and all the GAAS crap to go down in flames, causing Sony to suffer a significant loss and reevaluate its approach.

In addition to increase their investment on GaaS, Sony also increased their investment in non-GaaS titles. Their expansion in GaaS didn't affect their investment in non-GaaS. In fact they increased the amount of SP AAA games being made at the same time in ND, SSM, Guerrilla or XDEV plus made non-GaaS acquisitions like Housemarque or Firesprite in addition to support teams for SP games like Bluepoint, Nixxes or Valkyrie.

Not a single SP team in Sony was forced to make a GaaS, the teams themselves are the ones who pitch their projects.

Their current/recent Sony GaaS are made mostly by:

• External teams very experienced and successful at top GaaS/MP, a few of them got acquired (Bungie / Team LFG / Firewalk, Haven, Deviation, ARC System Works, First Contact, Bad Robot, Netease)
• Existing internal teams who already were working in very successful GaaS/MP (Media Molecule, San Diego, PolyPhony)
• Existing internal teams who had a multiplayer mode team and expanded it to make standalone GaaS/MP games separated by the other teams of the studio who continue working in single player games (ND, Guerrilla)

The exceptions are Bend, who wanted to add MP elements to their next open world, something they already wanted to have included in Days Gone (but didn't have time to do it) or a potential sequel that they decided to don't make by now, and London Studio, who pitched the AAA MP game they wanted to do since many years before.

 

[EN250]

This. This place has become DOA central. I don't even like defending Bungie, but anyone who thinks this will even remotely close to Concord deserves a clown makeup gift basket.

That's because there is no way to fall that far below, Concord is at the bottom of the barrel, there's nothing below that level of failure, sure Marathon is going to do better than Concord, because any game can do better than a game that was shutdown 2 weeks after release, there's nothing like that, except maybe that scam game "The Day Before", lmao

You wanna call it a success because it's forgotten a month after realease instead of mere days? OK then...

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I'm pretty bullish on it after that recent video. 200-300k, 40-60% drop.

The decaying bodies is a good idea for an extraction shooter.

 

[Sgt.Asher]

I think it will do alright. The bad first impression didn't do any help. The game is good and I will say I enjoyed it more than Arc. I was even skeptical of Marathon at first.
If Marathon did go head to head against Arc it would have bombed hard. The delay will end up saving it.