Marathon Review
MARATHON REVIEW
(IN PROGRESS)
To say that Bungie's Marathon has enormous pressure would be a massive understatement. It’s their first non Destiny title in over a decade as they try to follow up a game that created its own genre and was a commercial smash. It’s another live service attempt in a post Concord and High Guard world. It’s trying to make a second impression after the lukewarm reception of their open beta in 2025. It’s trying to measure up to the internal expectations of PlayStation, who have mostly abandoned their live service initiative from a few years ago. Finally, and for whatever reason, it’s trying to succeed as an extraction shooter after numerous industry failures, but also in the wake of Arc Raiders. It’s not out of the question to suspect that the fate of the entire company might hang in the balance of Marathon.
As expected, Marathon features immaculate gameplay, style, atmosphere and world building as Bungie DNA has been passed down from generation to generation. It’s incredibly easy to see how Marathon could have been a massive success as a single player game or even as a single player game, but with a multiplayer aspect like the Dark Zone from The Division. There is a lot of lore within this current build of Marathon and the IP has a rich background to pull from.
Since it’s a live service extraction shooter, the concern is that unlike 2014, where Destiny was given the room to succeed and even produce a sequel, shareholder and internal expectations are now moving at the speed of light. Destiny actually launched without one of its defining features, the Vault of Glass raid. It released a week later, but devoted players devoured most of the content in the first day.
The trendy thing to do in 2026 would be to proclaim Marathon a dead game, just like people did in the comments of Arc Raiders prior to it’s release, but after playing plenty of matches in its new iteration, Marathon has something, just not sure if it’s enough and if enough people want it, but if you were a fan of Destiny or the extraction genre, it’s worth a look.
The big issue is that similar to Destiny or other extraction shooters, Marathon features a steep learning curve, which isn’t helped by the lack of clarity on the UI within the game. You already need to understand the gameplay loop, shell abilities, value of items within the world, contracts and so much more. In most cases, learning what everything does typically happens through a dedicated community or hours of practice with trial and error.
Marathon has plenty of room for growth and improvements including the in game UI and polish. Even something like the process of being extracted looks janky, as you don’t fully disappear. The biggest overall issue is the lack of clarity on the UI overall, because it should be clear what bar is your health, which bar is your shield, when you are taking damage and how to quickly heal each one. It should also be a lot more clear who are the bots and who are the real players.
The entire premise is that the Marathon spaceship disappeared and hundreds of years later it has reappeared, but since the game is set in the distant future, you will “avatar” your consciousness into these shells. This also serves as a simple enough reason as to why you can die over and over in Marathon. Each shell, which is just the Marathon word for classes will have different skills and perks, which can be upgraded throughout each match with items you can find on the map. My personal early front runner was the assassin, who had an invisibility cloak.
When you begin Marathon, you will be given a very basic tutorial that covers the simple core gameplay including movements, how to loot, and how to extract. When the match ends, you will be given the gist of faction contracts that you can equip before attempting a run, which are great at giving the player a sense of direction. Ranking up with faction will provide passive bonuses such as more XP when playing solo.
One area to note that worked extremely well was the matchmaking, which all took place very quickly and with smooth performance once in the game.
Marathon Single Player Review
In single player or dedicated solo queues, the learning curve is a bit steeper since there is little to no room for error. You can quickly become overwhelmed with UESC bots, which are no joke or you could accidentally enter a room with poison gas, both of which can down you and without a teammate, you have no option but to give up.
As a solo player, only being able to take one contract seems to be counter intuitive to the entire ethos of the extraction genre, which is risk vs reward. Taking in two contracts and then completing the first would present an interesting dilemma of whether to attempt the next contract and risk not completing the first or extract with your good and fulfilled contract.
Unlike some of the viral clips of Arc Raiders where the game provided that friend or foe scenario, the early indications is that the current state of Marathon is shoot first ask questions later, which removes a lot of the emergent gameplay and leads to a very boring gameplay. However, this was a server slam, so the hope is that the community will change when it becomes pay to play and it will be interesting what happens when the barrier to entry rises through a 40 dollar purchase.
With the server slam being over, there wont be any more chances to play, and when combined with the endgame section Cryo Archive that will launch post game as well as other surprises, we will have to wait to give our full thoughts. I can see Marathon growing into something good, if it’s given the chance to evolve into something like Destiny did, but that’s a big if.
As it stands right now, Marathon looks and feels great, but it’s unclear at the moment why Marathon should be worthy of your time over other proven commodities that are available right now.
