The Good

I'm gonna say a lot, so thanks for reading if you take the time to check out my thoughts! Marathon is one of my most favorite games, and I love playing it. The game is gorgeous, the gameplay feels as excellent as Bungie games always tend to feel, and it's a lot of fun.

I played during the server slam, played none of season one, and then bought the game near the end of the free week for season two. Quite frankly, I haven't been this into a multiplayer game in probably close to a decade. I abandoned Destiny 2 for a number of reasons, and while I have played plenty of other games since then, Marathon has me hooked. Wanting to experience Cryo Archive (and hopefully one day fight and beat the Compiler) was the primary reason why I bought the game. I play a lot of going in solo and getting matched up with random players, and the vast majority are pretty cool, helpful, and kind. It seems like so many are open to helping newer players learn or complete things, and I haven't had this much non-toxic interaction in game chat AND proximity chat in a game in what feels like forever.

Although I've had fun on all of the maps, I don't really care for Perimeter, and I would much rather play on Night Dire Marsh, Outpost, and Cryo Archive. Running into other players seems like a guarantee on these maps, and battles can be crazy and challenging. I enjoy the fights and the tension of trying to avoid the fights to get out alive with cool stuff. Knowing when to run, shield/heal up, rotate away from or flank an enemy, or push enemies comes with a lot of risk/reward. I've been in situations where my team gets crushed within a few minutes of spawning, and I've been in situations where all hope seems lost and I've managed to 1v3 a team that had better gear than I had and still pull off an insane and unlikely victory.

So what about the meat of the game (looting all kinds of cool things, interacting with/avoiding other teams, and hopefully managing to get out alive)? Cryo Archive has probably given me two my most devastating, lowest-of-low gaming moments in my entire life gaming. It's also given me some of the most awesome, pure elation gaming moments I've ever experienced.

Regarding one of the lowest lows, in my second week of playing in season two, I went into Cryo alone and ended up with two random people on my team who really knew what they were doing. It was essentially the perfect run, we completed vault 2, and then we had just enough time for final exfil. If no one has seen what final exfil is like on Cryo, it doesn't tell you where it is on the map, your team has to split up to find it, and you need to have done this with maybe one minute left before final exfil appears to ensure everyone has time to group back up and get out alive. We couldn't find it, and we all died and lost everything. It's funny how quickly you can go from feeling so great to being totally crushed within seconds.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, one of the absolute coolest moments I've ever had while gaming (in general, not just in Marathon) happened again with a final exfil situation on Cryo. My team had no clue where to go for final exfil, and we ran into an enemy team. Fighting was guaranteed death for both teams, and they were also freaking out about making it out with whatever haul they had in their backpacks. Proximity chat led to a VERY QUICK negotiation to work together instead of fighting. We split up in multiple directions together, and then frantic shouting erupted once someone found the exfil. All six of us converged on the same area to fight off bots and help everyone get out at the same time. There were so many "thank yous" and "you all are awesome" comments and the pure happiness from my team and theirs in proximity voice, and that was pretty special. I know other games like Arc Raiders have similar moments, but Marathon has a way more brutal "shoot first, ask questions later" feel to it as a whole with teams more than willing to kill and prevent others from getting a final exfil even if it also means that they run out of time and die.

The other lowest low was in my first time making it to and fighting the Compiler. I screwed up and forgot to use my prime ability, but even if I had remembered, we still might have lost. Things went sour in the second damage phase regardless, and we all died. And that's when thoughts creep in about how what if any of us never even get to do the Compiler again? It's incredibly difficult to even get the opportunity to do it, let alone surviving other players and things while on your way there. Not to mention the thought about how I let my whole team down. It sucks.

And on the other side of that, I did get back to Compiler again, I learned my lessons from the failed attempt, and I didn't mess up. Getting to the Compiler, fighting it, killing it, and getting the loot is such an awesome experience. Bungie knocked the whole thing out of the park. It's not easy to accomplish, and it was a blast. The Compiler experience is right up there with some of the best blind-raid times I had in Destiny and some of the coolest things I ever did in Halo.

There's just something about Bungie games that usually always works, and Marathon just really hits the spot for me. I love the combat, I'm really good at the game, I get destroyed by teams, I destroy teams, and I have fun. Destiny was all about Become Legend. Marathon is all about how you're not special, you're going to die, you're going to come back and maybe do something triumphant, but you're gonna die again anyway, so just do the thing and have a blast doing it.

The Questionable

Marathon has a lot of problems, and I understand that a lot of what I've said above might not be agreed with. Individual user experience will definitely vary. I don't think this game is very accessible to new players or players with a lower "skill level", and I think its massive population drop is a testament to that. As I speak to more and more people on the game or see what people are saying online, it's very clear that many people who have been playing since season one still haven't managed to exfil from Cryo beyond once or twice if at all. Even on the "normal" maps, people struggle. And that really sucks, and a lot of that are design decisions for the maps to how loot is given. I also get that it's supposed to be brutal, but Bungie can't really bank on brutal right now. Cryo Breakers comes out soon, so hopefully that might bring more PVE-minded players into the fold and helps the players and game out. It would also hopefully give people a chance to experience things in Cryo that they just aren't able to in the regular, hardcore version of it.

But speaking of PVE and allowing more people to enjoy Marathon, it absolutely baffles me how this game has no campaign. And with that, there's no story. There's A LOT of lore, and a lot of the writing and voice acting is fantastic, but what a huge loss. Following in Destiny's footsteps by only going with lore and avoiding having a story was not a wise decision. I'm not even talking about needing a whole huge campaign. Make it a short, lovely campaign that lasts 2-3 hours (like with Portal or ODST). Also, even if the extraction component was the primary component, a general arena mode would have made a lot of sense with even a few playlists. It's unfortunate, and it might be too late to turn things around or add other things given the state of Bungie and what Sony is doing.

Also, for a multiplayer game, how is there no post-game carnage report? Successful or failed exfils will give you some cool info on screen in the immediate aftermath, but there's no going back to look at stats beyond that. Oversight, or purposeful decision?

TL;DR

I really love this game, it's not perfect or accessible to everyone, it's filled with insanely awesome and ridiculously painful moments, and I hope it survives beyond season two. I hope that somehow Bungie can turn it around and also survive to keep supporting Marathon and maybe rise from the ashes with some new title down the line. But if this be the end, then so shall it be. I'm going to enjoy Marathon while I can.

Anyone else have any really cool or fun stories (of elation or devastation) they want to share?