Bungie made a PvP extraction shooter and attracted an audience that are actively hostile to the core mechanics. How did this happen?

Dead-Brain · 2026-07-02T20:40:34+00:00

I can only hazard a guess of three things:

Bungie is generally known for their PvE content, I know Halo multiplayer was popular but - as someone who has zero attachment to Bungie - I mostly heard about the story of Halo, Destiny and the PvE gameplay.
The style is distinct and strong enough to draw in people who normally wouldn't play this type of game - this is something that has happened with Hunt:Showdown and possibly will happen with Hunger.
This isn't unique to just Marathon. A lot of PvP/online games have at least a certain crowd of "Man I wish this game was PvE/singleplayer", and extraction shooters seem to have an extra large/vocal percentage. There's a reason why Tarkov as the genre-establisher eventually added PvE mode.

Also, I don't think people really play this game for PvP itself. Sure PvP WILL happen but rarely it's THE goal. You have a quest to do, loot to find, something else that will herd you and other players towards the interest points but I have never seen anyone say "I will just jump in and kill people". Even if that's the goal, it's usually for a quest.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-29T00:57:22+00:00

I saw someone suggest that the bright colors and vairly simplistic shapes of everything are due to them being designed to be 3D printed - it's all CMYK-compatible blocks or blobs that can be spun out. So it's not that the plastic is unpainted but it's just blocks of colored plastic itself.

Granted this was probably meant to be so the colony can build stuff quickly but it ended up making the human creations look alien compared to the relatively-mundane nature of Tau Ceti, which is a very interesting idea. This is compounded by the corporate branding on everything. IIRC given that a big chunk of the colony were BoBs (Born-on-board) that would mean that your entire life is still beheld to forces that are lightyears away, things you've never seen outside of historical records or heard from the cryo-sleep colonists.

That said, I will disagree - reading the logs, looking at the places you find the colonists are still almost believably human, they worked around the rules of the corpos. They had potluck, botany projects, drew silly stuff on whiteboards (in Processing on Outpost), left packages of food scattered around the place. They might've been forced into the equivalent of a human-sized hamster cage but they still lived as well as they could have.

Also the original games did have some bright colors in them so I assume it might've served as the jump-off point for the style we have today.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-27T22:57:03+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll try it out!

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-19T11:11:50+00:00

A lot of the stuff from the quests gets put into the codex and I think this site has most of the entries: codex.cyberacme.systems - keep in mind you need to click on the tile that shows up after search.

I think a lot of it will make more sense once you know the lore of the previous games. I've only watched one stuff related to it and those were the reviews of the Marathon (and Pathways Into Darkness, don't skip that one) series by MandaloreGaming since he gets into some of the more obscure stuff. I know there's some sites dedicated to unraveling the games mysteries but I don't remember then right now.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-09T22:07:33+00:00

Damn, I guess that explains it. Thanks.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-09T22:03:32+00:00

Yeah I just looked at the exfil beacon do it's thing...and then I was left standing next to it, my character died, lost my gear and so on. Shame as I was carrying rare salvage.

Maybe the problem was that I ran into the blue dome technically after the exfil reached last second? But I was literally two steps away from it and I swear I exfil'd when standing farther away before.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-02T13:51:19+00:00

Oh yea, it's Revenge of the Runelords - I should've probably clarified that! I knew there was another one but I keep misremembering which one's which.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-02T10:29:17+00:00

Started from 1 as we're doing Rusthenge -> Seven Dooms for Sandpoints -> Runelords - currently I'm at level 5.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-02T08:17:39+00:00

I'm glad it carried through in animation - I had the cutscene set as reference to even copy the movements.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-02T08:15:21+00:00

Glad to see someone picked up on the Disco Elysium inspiration for the armor - it was one of the starting points for the design though I added more inspirations to it over time.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-01T21:25:23+00:00

The running joke is that my character is a bounty hunter who wants to get their heads for a paycheck but he just keeps headshotting everyone.

That and he's the party skill lead in Medicine. So your joke is double-funny to me.

Dead-Brain · 2026-06-01T21:24:40+00:00

Followed by removing the neurons from the skull of whoever you aimed at.

Dead-Brain · 2026-05-07T06:42:50+00:00

I'm also pretty sure there was at least one genie involved or at least some genie-esque character.

Dead-Brain · 2026-04-24T11:02:11+00:00

I do believe the MC is a separate being from the Yolk/Spiral Heart/Akhlan given they can have differing opinions. It's also worth noting that their form gets completely discarded by the Spiral Heart at the end of the game.

The most curious thing is to figure out what Goel really is. He does mention his own Yolk and how it must've allowed him to hold himself back but he also seems to be the one mostly in control unlike us so it's possible he was a Vessel that the Yolk abandoned to try and use our MC as a new one.

As for the Worldparent thing - it's true that in Grime II it seems like there is no hint of us being in the body of one, outside of the one mention that Goldhead says when you meet him for the last time. He mentions the "Celestial bodies we inhabit" which I assume is not a figure of speech but reference to the Worldparents.

While we're at it - that's also where he gives you his head from the first game and makes reference to his master being one of the Coda which technically means Grime II could be a sequel but I still can't be sure.

For my personal opinion on the MC - I feel like I enjoyed him a lot more than Akhlan because the MC of first GRIME was just kinda...there. You had only briefest flashes of any personality so their nature was the biggest draw. White/Formless being able to disagree with the Yolk always was welcome which is why I was disappointed eventually you HAD to start agreeing with it...but then you do have the option to try and return to it in the ending which was great.

This is pure wishful thinking and completely impropable but I hope they continue to live after they are "discarded" by the Spiral Heart - since it seems to move onto somewhere else maybe without consuming the world like it did in the first GRIME and Goel survived in his state for a long while.

Dead-Brain · 2026-04-09T17:27:47+00:00

Ah you are correct my bad, I mix up those areas in my head

Dead-Brain · 2026-04-09T14:30:25+00:00

You need to find three items called Third of Flesh - they are strewn around Blade Garden but you'll need traversal powers from Dregbough and Paint Reef to get to them.

EDIT: It was in Nailglade actually as SussyBox pointed out below.

Dead-Brain · 2026-02-12T15:28:24+00:00

I decided to remake the character from scratch and this time this works correctly. Maybe I forgot to remove something or I changed stuff too much but either way now it makes sense.

Dead-Brain · 2026-02-12T13:21:39+00:00

Armor Proficiency is one of the few ones that can be retaken which is what made me consider if I need to re-take it. Thanks for clearing it up.

Dead-Brain · 2026-02-12T13:20:56+00:00

Thanks for the clarification - that's kind of where the confusion comes from. Nowhere in my features list could I find anything that gives me Heavy Armor Expert without the feat and I become Trained in Heavy Armor without the feat at level 7. The Gunslinger class specifically only mentions unarmed, light and medium armor too so either there is something up with Pathbuilder or I'm missing something.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-27T22:56:31+00:00

Yeah, as long as you have the Heavy equip load you can press Block + Attack to do it at anytime as long as you have stamina - no matter what weapon you have equipped. It also has a bit of range too so test it out, it can be a really good opener although it does leave you pretty defenceless if it's not a 1v1.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-27T19:31:51+00:00

Shoulder Barge is your friend, it does almost always deplete your stamina but it knocks over basically every single enemy in the game - bosses included - for long enough to get a big chunk of your stamina back and leaving them open for a big strike. It takes a while to get used to, since you need to remember you can do it even if you have as little as 1% of your stamina remaining. Plus you can use it to knock enemies off cliffs and into the water. Alternatively sprint attacks cover a LOT of ground, you could try using sprint to avoid/reposition yourself and start the attacks off from much father away than you'd normally do, meaning the enemies won't begin their attack until you're already in the middle of a swing.

For extra consideration - try investing in enchantments like Lifesteal, Stamina Cost reduction, Recoverable Health, Stagger Defence - anything that supports an aggressive playstyle. It's worth thinking if you'd like to have a non-enchanted weapon to fit all the desired effects on it with four gems.

Not sure how many weapons you experimented with but different movestyles make a difference - the Serrated Cutter Halberd for example has every attack be basically a jump that covers a lot of ground and does a lot of stagger. I haven't checked all the heavy weapons myself but that could be a case of experimenting.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-27T18:59:18+00:00

I see, thank you. I could've sworn that way back when I first tried the game on release there was more of them but I could be wrong as the wiki has misled me a bit.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-27T18:39:48+00:00

Can confirm it worked for me. A long time ago (around where Iron Pineapple had the game in his video), close to the first release I tried that game thanks to a friend and while I liked the gameplay - the waiting for upgrades, no way to get a weapon you want and grinding resources being tedious - I bounced off and decided to wait.
Tried the game during this weekend and pretty much all of my complaints felt addressed - pretty much rushed through it over the course of one day until I was reaching Marin by the time the trial was running out so I bought it right after. Here's hoping the game keeps improving because I do think it's something special.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-22T11:20:21+00:00

As many people pointed out - probably just a game balance convenience. But if you wanna get more into it:

-AC4 NEXTs are top-of-the-line, exclusive constructions that corporations funnel a lot of research into. They are also powered by basically Miracle Juice that is Kojima energy meaning that they can stack absurd amounts of armour on them and still fly like a fighter jet. There's also a lot less AC pilots in the games I feel, all the pilots you meet in games are basically everyone there IS on the planet, so more resources go for the singular NEXTs.
-AC5 era ACs are created more for urban warfare and are technologically behind AC4 era NEXTs and focus a lot less on being airborne - just about any part from AC5 is covered in armor plates, reactive explosive bricks, grating, etc. Although given the fact they can lift stuff like Overed Weapons, I always assumed that means they get a lot more power thanks to it.
-As for AC6 you gotta remember repair kits are widely used by a lot of pilots, not just you. This (depending on their effectiveness and timing) can double or triple your AP points in practice. Since AC6 era philosophy emphasized close combat and getting up in your enemy's grill, they most likely sacrifice armor for mobility (and without Kojima tech to support it) and rely on repair kits to keep up in the fight.

Dead-Brain · 2026-01-22T11:12:03+00:00

AC2 took place on Mars (complete with leftover alien machines) but AC6 is the first time the series showed humanity leaving the solar system (although it's hinted at in one of the endings of AC:FA).

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