This. (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, April 27, 2026, 15:35 (1 hours, 38 minutes ago) @ cheapLEY

Yeah. I care about theme parks and ARG/immersive gaming a lot, and so I knew long before Marathon that I'm more than happy to have a story told to me environmentally and/or through audio snippets and terminals. I don't think it is the ONLY way to do storytelling, nor do I think there is a best way to do it, but I absolutely think it is valid and can be done with a stunning level of skill.

I think it's done incredibly well in Marathon, and more, I think it fits the game extremely well. Maybe it's possible, but I don't see how you could really fit a traditional cinematic narrative into an online multiplayer game structured like Marathon. It works well for me, as I can just play the game with friends, then come back on my own time and listen to the audio logs and such. It certainly works better here than it does in Destiny, in my opinion. The extraneous stuff in Destiny is great, in some ways it's the best story telling in the game, but it remains sort of disappointing that's the case--in a game like Destiny it seems silly to tuck the most interesting stuff into lore entries rather than in the main campaigns.

It fits the story. There is no NPC to feed you plot points, and there wouldn't be. You're exploring the lost colony. The PVP fits, too, which is unfortunate given it's somewhat of an obstacle for me. It really is a cohesive game--more so than Destiny has been much of the time.

And Cody, I know it's been way over 20 years since the first game, but I find it interesting that the guy with an OG Marathon avatar is so quick to dismiss text as a story delivery mechanism. If it fits, it fits. Reading text is still a valid experience, and I think it always will be.