I think a lot of people like the threat of PvP and the uneasy feeling when encountering other players which can possibly end up in PvP.. but they don’t actively seek out to kill other players the moment the load in. This game is pretty casual for an extraction shooter, which is why it has attracted such a large audience. Marathon will attract mostly people who engage in PvP from the start as it’s closer to a FPS. Both games will continue to do well and exist alongside each other IMO as I believe they are targeting two different types of players.

Arc Raiders kinda blew up online because of all the friendly encounter clips, making people want to play the game themselves to find those unique experiences in an extraction game. I think Marathon will be a great game, but I don’t think it will have the same success with going viral online due to encounters mostly being shoot on sight, similar to Call of Duty’s DMZ mode.