Forget Everything You Knew About Marathon: How Bungie's New Shooter Defies Expectations

Marathon is a brutal and uncompromising shooter that offers no quarter to newcomers and lacks PVE-specific matchmaking. Victory is forged during the build customization phase, and solo players must adapt to challenging survival rules. This deep dive examines the game's raid structure, classes, and progression in what is becoming one of the season's most controversial releases.

In the months leading up to launch, discussions around Marathon shifted significantly. The success of ARC Raiders, alongside talks of separate PvP and PvE matchmaking lobbies and Bungie's emphasis on the PvE audience, led some players to believe Marathon would strike a balance between a hardcore title like Escape from Tarkov and more accessible extraction shooters.

In reality, Marathon must be evaluated independently of these preconceptions. It is neither a player-friendly version of the genre nor a simplified iteration. This analysis will delve into its visual design, raid mechanics, progression system, and game modes to clarify who this game is for, and who it isn't.

Visuals and Graphics

Marathon's visual style is characterized by sharp contrasts and an acidic color palette, with lime green prominently featured, even in the logo. During early closed tests, this led to environments appearing overly flat. By release, the visuals were refined: surfaces now show wear, dirt, signs of use, and other details that better convey the atmosphere of an abandoned colony.

The colony's architecture is distinctly utilitarian. Many buildings consist of simple geometric shapes with minimal expressive elements. While this aligns with the game's artistic logic, it also makes exteriors occasionally appear too simplistic, leading some players to draw comparisons with Roblox.

Interiors are more convincing. Laboratories, technical areas, residential blocks, and ruined structures don't feel like generic placeholders. Even with the consistent color scheme, each room possesses a function and character. Consequently, internal spaces are more distinct and readable than the exterior silhouettes of the buildings.

Vegetation is the weakest element. Grass, trees, and other flora sometimes appear artificial, even on maximum graphics settings. This highlights that natural environments received less attention than architectural and interior details, despite this contrast being intended to emphasize the planet's dangers.

The saving grace for the visuals is the lighting and weather. Fog, rain, thunderstorms, and rare clear spells constantly alter the perception of locations. In overcast conditions, the map appears more cohesive; light obscures some simpler forms, and distant views are softened by fog and precipitation.

The same applies to local light sources. Darkened corners, red, and ultraviolet zones complicate firefights and assist players in hiding. Occasionally, lighting can mask an enemy as effectively as a dedicated ability. Consequently, while Marathon's visuals aren't flawless, they possess character, with strong elements cleverly compensating for weaker ones.

Narrative Decades Later

For a significant portion of modern audiences, Marathon is a new game. However, it marks the return of an old Bungie series, first released in the mid-1990s on Macintosh. The original trilogy chronicled the spaceship Marathon, its journey to Tau Ceti, and conflicts with AI and alien races.

The new game continues this narrative, but with a twist. Not only did Bungie leave the franchise dormant for nearly 30 years, but the new game's events occur approximately 100 years after the original trilogy. This leaves many players without crucial context. The colony on Tau Ceti IV has long been established, but humans are gone, having perished due to an unknown virus and anomaly. The territory is now controlled by the forces of the United Earth Space Council (UESC) and their faceless robot armies.

However, governmental forces aren't the only ones vying for control of the planet. Corporations and other organizations, each with their own agendas, are also entangled in the story. It is through these factions that Marathon's primary narrative is delivered.

Players don't control a specific hero but rather a mercenary, deploying into raids via combat "shells." This is a crucial detail for both setting and gameplay. While a shell can be lost, the mercenary survives and can embark on the next raid in a new body.

The story is presented in two parts. First, faction missions advance the plot and provide essential context. Second, a Codex contains logs about colony life, research, and daily routines. Fans of the classic Marathon games will likely appreciate this approach, as the originals also revealed lore through terminal entries. However, players primarily seeking progression and raids in an extraction shooter might find this narrative depth unnecessary.

In this genre, many players prioritize rapid progression and establishing a stable loot cycle. At such a pace, dialogues and secondary context are often skipped. Marathon offers rich lore, but it primarily caters to those willing to play at a slower tempo, read, and piece together the larger narrative.

Similar to All, Yet Like No Other

Even before release, gamers attempted to describe Marathon's gameplay by referencing other titles. Visually, Roblox was mentioned; mechanically, Escape from Tarkov, Apex Legends, Valorant, and Delta Force. While these comparisons are understandable, Marathon ultimately resembles none of the above.

The game's tempo is high. Firefights emphasize movement as much as holding positions, and weapons don't instantly kill with a single shot. This results in more dynamic combat, yet Marathon remains a brutal game.

During playtesting, tier lists of the most effective weapons quickly emerged in Marathon, with shotguns topping most lists. A double-barrel shotgun can swiftly eliminate even well-armored opponents, while other weapons demand greater skill. Even expensive legendary-kitted weapons don't feel as cost-effective, though skilled players can counter shotguns by maintaining distance.

The ranked mode also appears to be a simplified adaptation. In other extraction shooters, rank is typically based on a variety of actions, but in Marathon, it boils down to collecting a specific quota of valuables. This mode features special items that serve primarily as progress counters rather than actual loot. In practice, this encourages passive gameplay: teams quickly grab what they need, then prefer to camp extraction points.

The ranking system's issues are compounded by the game's team-oriented design. While solo entry is technically possible, matches are still structured around encounters with full squads. Solo players also face a unique limitation: they cannot collect valuables beyond a certain threshold, a restriction not imposed on groups. Consequently, the ranked mode feels less like a test of individual skill and more like a format exclusively designed for team play.

Contracted Runners

Marathon's core feature is its character system, which led some to mistakenly label it a "hero shooter." The game features six classes, each with unique abilities. The closest analogy would be Rainbow Six: Siege, where abilities don't replace gunplay but rather augment it, significantly influencing the course of an encounter.

A rare mechanic for the genre is resurrection. Upon losing all health, a character doesn't always die instantly but falls into a downed state, only able to crawl. An ally can revive them, while an enemy can finish them off. However, even after being finished, the raid isn't necessarily over for that specific teammate: a crate containing their items remains at the body's location, and interacting with it can bring a comrade back into the fight.

This solution has a significant consequence. A player might be revived only after another party has looted their gear. While technically back in the raid, they are effectively forced to continue "naked," requiring the team to either re-acquire lost loot or share their own supplies with the revived teammate.

Two additional details complement this system. Firstly, there's no strict limit on the number of downs and deaths per raid, which is particularly important for group play. Secondly, an item exists for self-revival. These elements are still atypical for extraction shooters, distinguishing Marathon from more conservative genre titles through such minor innovations.

A Different Approach to Progression

In most extraction shooters, progression relies on three pillars: a hideout, traders, and character skills. Hideouts allow for crafting, traders expand available inventory, and character attributes gradually provide useful bonuses.

Marathon reworks this system entirely. There are no hideouts or crafting. Instead, all progression is tied to relationships with six different organizations. These factions sell gear, unlock access to new modules, and influence the parameters of your chosen shell.

This is a crucial distinction from games where the primary goal is to hoard expensive weapons and armor. In Marathon, the outcome of an encounter relies less on weapon rarity and more on the shell's characteristics, implants, and available abilities. Shields provide extra health but don't turn a hero into a tank. Weapon quality depends on installed modules, meaning you can win a fight with a basic weapon or die to a knife-wielding "scav" even with a fully kitted legendary gun.

Each organization offers a unique set of advantages. CyberAcme enhances stamina, reduces fall damage, and expands storage. NuCaloric sells medical supplies and boosts regeneration. MIDA specializes in explosives and agility. Arachne improves melee combat, finishing moves, and ally revival speed. Traxus provides a wide selection of weapons and attachments. Sekiguchi, meanwhile, sells character boosters and ability cooldown modifiers.

Ultimately, the difference between a novice and a veteran isn't determined by gear rarity as much as by individual skill. More important are the player's chosen runner, their movement agility, ability cooldown management, and the effectiveness derived from implants and cores.

Pre-Raid Headaches

Marathon's main weakness outside of raids is the preparation phase. The main menu presents too many fragmented screens. Inventory and character stats are spread across different tabs, forcing constant menu switching to evaluate a build.

The shop presents a similar issue. It's divided into six separate markets corresponding to each faction, but navigating between them is unintuitive. To switch from the shop to the faction interaction screen, a new player must exit one menu, navigate to another, and then search for the correct section via faction tabs. Only after dozens of hours do players typically discover a hidden button in the bottom-left corner of the screen that directly links the faction skill tree and its respective shop.

The equipment structure itself creates additional complexity for newcomers. Beyond weapons, shields, ammo, and medical supplies, each runner has two slots for "cores" — modifiers that influence their abilities and playstyle. Some cores are universal, while others are specific to certain shells. For instance, the Vandal might have an option to mark targets with a repulsion cannon, while the Assassin might have a core that speeds up movement while invisible. The rarer the core, the stronger its effect.

Implants are equally crucial, divided into head, chest, and leg slots. They enhance a runner's passive attributes, but a significant problem is that the game doesn't clearly explain their side effects. Implants boost some stats while reducing others, and these penalties aren't always evident from the description. Players must constantly swap implants, checking the character screen and then returning to inventory to understand their impact.

A random bonus effect further complicates matters. Two identical implants might have different secondary abilities; for example, one might apply a toxin on knife hits, while another renders the character invisible during self-revival or ally resuscitation. This can lead players to choose an enhancer based on a random bonus rather than primary stats, making it another intricate layer of build crafting.

Consumables present a similar situation. Beyond health kits, shield batteries, and self-revive injectors, there's specialized medicine. Mechanic kits remove toxins, paralysis, and frostbite – common effects in raids. OS Debug Packs counter hacking and EMP effects on a player's shell. Cardiostimulants boost agility and thermal capacity, allowing faster and longer sprints. Panacea fully restores health and shields and removes all negative effects.

There are also more specialized items. A signal jammer hides the runner from radars, enemy mines, and turrets, and distorts their silhouette for other players. Antivirus is only needed for events in infected zones and is genuinely crucial mainly on the "Spooky Swamp" and "Cryo Archive" maps, which feature these specific areas.

All of this creates as much headache as preparing for a raid in Escape from Tarkov. However, this problem can be mitigated by using pre-made faction sets. While these cannot be supplemented with items from your personal stash, they allow for quick entry into a match. The issue is that expensive sets often don't justify their cost, while free ones, conversely, can be surprisingly useful. With them, players can complete contracts and, if played well, even defeat better-equipped opponents, collecting their loot.

Every Map – A Unique Adventure

The basic cycle in Marathon is familiar to other extraction shooters: select a map, take a contract, enter a raid, gather resources, and extract alive. The difference lies in the details.

Currently, four maps are available: "Perimeter," "Spooky Swamp," "Outpost," and "Cryo Archive."

• "Perimeter" is the starting location. It doesn't offer much valuable loot but is convenient for gathering basic materials for early progression.
• "Spooky Swamp" is richer in resources, and most faction-related story missions are centered on this location.
• "Outpost" is a compact, vertical, and the most confrontational map, where player engagements occur most frequently.
• "Cryo Archive" is the largest map available, emphasizing not just player-vs-player encounters, but also teamwork, puzzle-solving, platforming, and NPC combat. It holds the most valuable loot and presents the highest risks.

Each map also features unique events. On "Perimeter," a task to intercept valuable UESC cargo might activate – a straightforward event offering everyone a chance to compete for good loot.

"Spooky Swamp" regularly features anomalous samples. A perimeter lockdown event also occurs there: a platform appears over a section of the map, isolating the zone and dealing damage to anyone within it without protection. An antivirus is required to enter. Inside, players must disable a generator, collect valuable loot, and wait for the platform to move to another part of the map. Up to three such lockdowns can occur per raid, with each subsequent reward becoming more valuable – and thus, extracting with it becomes more dangerous.

On "Outpost," the central tower is the main point of interest. Keycards are needed to access it and its associated rooms. These cards open gates, activate extraction points, and call in cargo ships. This divides players on the map: some prepare to assault the tower, while others aim to ambush the victors after the main events.

Each map also features local bosses called Wardens. These are robots with more aggressive AI and increased health and damage. The reward for defeating them is high, but the fight itself almost always attracts other players, who come not for the boss but for those already engaged with it.

"Cryo Archive" is the toughest map available. It's a sector of the Marathon colony ship housing the local AI's core. Structurally, it resembles Outpost, with a central challenge involving an alien boss, the Compiler. However, entry conditions are much stricter here. Players can only enter with a squad; solo matchmaking is unavailable, as is the "ROOK" shell (the local equivalent of Tarkov's Scav). Additionally, each player must have gear worth at least 5000 credits.

Beyond regular loot, "Cryo Archive" requires players to raise their access level by collecting tokens from robots and hacking consoles. A higher access level unlocks more ship compartments. To progress to Marathon's central mystery, Level 5 access and a sample for a DNA scanner are necessary.

Locked rooms requiring keycards present a separate puzzle. A single keycard isn't enough; players must also install batteries and a coolant capsule into a generator near the door, and find the credentials of the correct employee. This means even accessing niche rewards becomes a multi-step task that must be solved throughout the entire raid.

It's important to note that maps cannot be assessed in isolation from squad composition. The experience of the same location changes significantly depending on the shells a group brings into the raid.

Three – The Magic Number

One of Marathon's key features is that its foundation is clearly built for a three-person squad. While the game formally offers a solo mode, most systems operate as if a trio remains the standard team size.

This is evident in the raid logic itself. Marathon builds tension not around slow, cautious looting, but around constant noise, time pressure, and the risk of third-party intervention. When one player covers a flank, a second engages, and a third provides support, this system feels logical. Solo, such comprehensive spatial control is almost unattainable.

The hero-shooter structure only enhances this effect. Each class contributes uniquely to a squad. The game doesn't prohibit selecting identical characters, allowing groups to build around classic role distribution or focus on a single, specific tactic.

Three Assassins could play through invisibility and smoke, while three Vandals could focus on mobility and aggression. In both scenarios, Marathon supports not only diverse builds but also narrow specialization. This is another indicator that the game's balance was initially geared towards team play.

Therefore, the recommendation to play Marathon with friends isn't merely a "more fun" suggestion. The game truly shines in a group: its tempo, revival system, hero abilities, and progression all seem fine-tuned specifically for trios.

There is a downside, however. In many extraction shooters, team play often leads to the practice of "gearing up" teammates, quickly fostering a grey market for real-money item sales. Bungie attempted to curb this in Marathon. Resources cannot be freely transferred into a raid, and weapons, armor, and consumables given to a teammate are marked as borrowed, returning to their original owner upon successful extraction.

Despite these efforts, the grey market persists, rendering the entire concept of restricting gear transfers a failure. Service providers now guide players through challenging raids, such as "Cryo Archive," for a fee, allowing them to collect top-tier loot themselves.

Consequently, team play in Marathon is strong in combat but limited economically. While some players are content with this, others are pushed towards solo play, where the game feels distinctly different.

Marathon ≈ Escape from Tarkov (for solo players)

The solo mode quickly reveals its secondary status in Marathon. The first indication is matchmaking time: group raids usually find matches quickly, whereas solo waits are significantly longer. This minor detail immediately establishes the impression that solo mode is not intended as the primary experience.

The main difference becomes apparent within the raid itself. In team play, abilities expand tactical options, but in solo, they become a matter of survival. Players can no longer offset their character's weaknesses with allies, making shell selection much more critical.

For cautious play, the Triage medic, who can heal themselves and restore shields with drones, is suitable. However, solo players more often gravitate towards the Assassin: invisibility and smoke work best in a mode where the goal isn't to win a prolonged exchange, but to initiate combat first or disengage just as quickly.

At the opposite end is the Destroyer. In solo runs, this class is utilized far less frequently and only with a specific build. Its shield wall rarely provides a decisive advantage, and dashes and tactical sprints are less effective where information, positioning, and the first shot are paramount, rather than battlefield maneuvering. Nevertheless, it is not entirely useless.

This is why, in trios, Marathon resembles a hero-action game with constant engagements, while in solo, it's much closer to Escape from Tarkov. Sound, patience, route control, and the ability to strike first come to the forefront. Most solo players quickly adopt a highly cautious style: less noise, fewer unnecessary skirmishes, and more ambushes.

The game provides tools for such tactics. Mines are visible due to sensor highlights, making them most effective in doorways and tight passages. Unconventional mine usage has also found its way into the game: a trap can be disguised as a deceased player's loot box. If another player attempts to open it, the trap explodes and knocks out the target.

Direct one-on-one firefights do occur, where mechanical aiming, shield management, and accuracy matter more than in team battles. Yet, even in these situations, solo remains a mode where the cost of error is extremely high. Thus, most players try to avoid fair duels.

Bots pose a separate problem. For a solo player, any engagement with robots is dangerous for several reasons: it reveals your position, forces resource expenditure, and opens a window for player intervention. Even after a full clear, the area doesn't become safe, as reinforcements arrive to replace destroyed enemies. Ultimately, the solo mode itself pushes players towards a stealthy approach.

ROOK and Scavenging

Special mention must go to the ROOK – a direct equivalent to Escape from Tarkov's Scav. ROOKs join ongoing raids with pre-set gear, usually finding that the most valuable areas have already been looted.

On paper, the idea is useful: it's a way to enter a raid without a full loadout, scavenge leftover loot, and avoid risking your main gear. However, the ROOK has too many limitations.

The ROOK lacks a full combat skill set, possessing only robot camouflage and emergency regeneration. This is sufficient for stealthy movement but inadequate for serious engagements. Players must rely more on tactical gear like mines and grenades, lure opponents toward bots, and intervene in ongoing skirmishes.

Two fundamental limitations exacerbate this issue: ROOKs cannot complete quests, and they only join group raids. This means even as a pseudo-free runner, a ROOK will regularly face trios if not cautious.

Still, the mode has potential. By leveling up faction relationships, ROOKs can unlock implants, cores, and even a shotgun, making ambushes easier. But even with these improvements, it remains more of an auxiliary mode and a last resort than a full-fledged solo tool.

Therefore, for solo players, it's often more advantageous to enter a raid as a regular hero with a free loadout. This option offers greater control, allows quest completion, and avoids forcing the player into a fundamentally disadvantaged format.

Verdict

Marathon is not an extraction shooter for a broad audience. The game remains harsh, demanding, and has a higher barrier to entry than many genre competitors. Mastering it requires significant time, studying shell roles and characteristics, and delving into character build guides.

The game does have strengths. Marathon plays fast, excels in trios, and offers rich lore for those willing to delve into it. Maps are distinctly varied, and weather and lighting help the visuals maintain their appeal even where the geometry of locations appears overly simple.

The main problem lies elsewhere. The game performs poorly in solo format and currently doesn't accommodate duo squads well – though a duo mode is currently being tested. Additionally, before each raid, players must navigate a cluttered interface until they've thoroughly learned it.

Currently, Marathon possesses its most crucial assets: its own rhythm and a distinctive identity. But it is not a game for everyone. Those expecting a softer, PvE-focused extraction shooter like ARC Raiders will find nothing here. Conversely, those prepared to embrace complex matchmaking, high risk, and a strong reliance on team play should consider looking into it now.