It just gets better. (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Saturday, March 28, 2026, 23:22 (4 hours, 11 minutes ago) @ CyberKN

The more I play, the better the game gets. I'm honestly kind of blown away by just how good the game is. Everything in the game just meshes so well, it's really impressive how well designed everything is.

The thing that made me quit Arc Raiders was just that the loop got stale. It felt like it lost its purpose a bit. I know everyone loves how cooperative that game became, and while it was interesting and fun at first, it ultimately made the game sort of boring. It got to where you could load into a solo lobby and join basically every player in taking down the Queen or whatever. Add to that that the upgrade tree was just not interesting, nothing felt like it made a meaningful difference. The only driving force of the game became collecting trash to level up your workbenches and finding blueprints, and it sort of just became a slog.

Marathon feels like the total opposite experience. The faction upgrade trees feel super meaningful, both in terms of leveling up your runners and unlocking vendor stock, and there's a lot of choice for the player to decide what the focus should be. Want easy access to healing items and consumables? Focus on NuCaloric. Want to be a grenade throwing maniac? Mainline MIDA. Add in the fact that literally everything you do from killing enemies and runners to looting specific containers will give you XP for one faction or another, and you're always making progress for something no matter what you do.

More importantly, though, are the contracts. While the main loop is definitely resource and gear acquisition, I'm impressed by how much the contracts add. I really feel like the factions are sending me out to do something specific to further their goals. While they do all sort of end up being, "go here, hit the button, kill the commander, go somewhere else, hit the button," there's enough flavor in all of it to make them end up not feeling like I'm just doing the same thing over and over.

That standout is just how fun the game feels. I honestly think this may be the best PvP Bungie has ever made, even if that maybe takes a bit to show itself. At the beginning it was easy to feel like it was too easy to just die without even realizing what was going on, but as I've learned the maps and become more comfortable with the different weapons and shells, that doesn't feel like the reality. Even with the quick time to kill, there's enough cover in the maps that you can pretty much always reposition and reset an encounter. I've had quite a few really drawn out squad fights that were really fun. Honestly, it feels a lot like Apex Legends, and that's a good thing. And things can get really chaotic if everything converges the right way with multiple squads and a bunch of UESC in the area.

My only complaint remains investment time for the upgrades. I'm sure part of it is that I just don't play super efficiently--the combat in the game is so fun that I sort of don't care what's in my backpack, I'm always down to take on that other squad if the opportunity presents itself. But it still feels like progress is maybe a touch on the slow side. That is ultimately a minor complaint, though, as I don't feel like I'm a huge disadvantage because of it.