Bungie reversed course on its idea that it would make tens of thousands of players sign an NDA not to record, stream or even talk about its Marathon Closed Alpha, and now I am able to do things like say, write this article about the game’s strengths and weaknesses, as I see them, from this initial run at the game. But first, two disclaimers.
1) I am not an extraction shooter player. If you do not want to listen to anything I’m saying here because of that, that’s totally fine. But I am going to try to keep my take on the genre out of this and not say things like “it’s bad you lose all your loot, it should not do that.” I get it, it’s a different genre.
2) This is an Alpha, things will change. But we can only judge based on what we’re playing here and we do not know exactly what will change. More things will be added, so I won’t complain about a limited gun pool, for instance, but other things, we just don’t know. So, let’s go:
THE GOOD
The Interiors – I will get to the exteriors later, as it may not surprise you that those are in a different category. But the interiors is the one aspect of Marathon that I think has fully lived up to the art direction in the marketing, and some of these spaces are deeply cool. I love finding new ones, and in general, I really do like the expansive color palette which significantly stands out in the multiplayer space.
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UESC Bots – Killing bots is a fun dynamic, especially when they are more than purely fodder and can ruin your day if you don’t pay attention to thinning their ranks. This can turn into truly PvPvE when they show up during a teamfight.
Void Invisible Assassination – I’ve really enjoyed playing as Void so far and my favorite thing to do is stealth and go around knifing people or bots with an actually viable melee strategy. My favorite moment of the Alpha so far was getting in a harrowing knife fight with a UESC Commander which, surprisingly, I won.
Glitch Mobility – There are a lot of complaints about combat in the game being slow, but Glitch feels like the one character that changes that with her super slides and double jumps, and even if I miss Void knifing, I’ve enjoyed playing her, heat issues aside (more on that later).
Factions – I like this whole system, from the lore to the permanent upgrades to the care packages. It gives you goals to work toward even if you’re not doing amazing extractions all the time (though obviously you will have to extract things for them at times).
Map Events – This can range from anomalies to mass UESC invasion to creepy lore things like voices hacking into your comms. I’d like to see more of this and it does seem like more is coming as the game expands.
Music and Sound Design – It’s incredible in every way, possibly the single best aspect of the entire game right now.
THE BAD
Exteriors and Character Models – As good as interiors look, both exteriors and character models just look awful right now. This does in fact seem to be an Alpha thing to a certain extent, but the textures and lighting here is bizarre, with so many things so flat and smooth it often feels like these aspects of the game haven’t fully loaded in yet. What they’ve done with exteriors I badly need them to do with interiors. Same for character models which can genuinely look like Roblox characters at times, especially the UESC.
PC Aimbot – Easily the most common complaint about playing on PC, where in an effort to balance combat with controllers, PC players have been gifted an aimbot that means you more or less cannot miss your targets. This makes firefights all about who fires first, more or less, and skill is mainly about getting the drop on people rather than being good at actual gunplay. I expect this to be toned down after the Alpha as it is the primary feedback for combat.
Heat – I do understand that stamina, in this case heat, is a part of extraction games, which is fine, and I know you upgrade it in time. But with how little mobility baseline combat has already, things like a single slide burning through half your heat does not feel good, and especially hamstrings characters like Glitch who are supposed to be built around that kind of thing. It feels overly punishing.
Too Much Freezing – Again, extraction-y things a bit here, but there is a lot of dead time spent pausing, going through drops, waiting for things to load, trying to select certain things over others from dead enemies. And you cannot do things like move while the map is up. I understand that it makes you vulnerable, but it feels like a bit much when there’s so much looting and this state feels like half a run.
No Solos – The only solo option being to load into a normal 3s game by yourself is bad. Not just in terms of people not wanting to play 3s, but there are so many missions and objectives that require going to specific POIs and doing specific events and if you’re playing with randoms there’s often just no way to convince them to do that. You really need a friend team to do those things with any efficiency.
Apex-ish – I know some people hate this comparison already, but it is hard to get it out of my head that these 3v3 fights feel like a slower version of Apex Legends with less mobility and more aimbotting. The encounters don’t feel unique compared to anything adjacent to this genre, and generally speaking are less fun that what Bungie has done in Halo or Destiny relative to its competitive there. I do not mind the slower pace of a run in general, but this feels pretty deritivate.
The Hook? – Ultimately I’m not really sure why I’d play Marathon specifically over other multiplayer games. I was hoping Bungie would break out and do something hugely different with the genre, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, at least right now. It feels mainly like a more “mainstream” extraction shooter mainly trying to appeal to console players where that is close to a non-existent market. But after the massive franchises of Destiny and Halo, this feels like it’s missing the Bungie of it all.
I’m still playing, I will keep playing, and these thoughts will change in time.
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