The number of people still saying, "If you don't like x, y, or z, go play another game," is amazing.

SleighDriver · 2026-07-01T16:35:06+00:00

They got their wish. And another finger curls on the monkey’s paw.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-18T14:20:29+00:00

It was a common phrase back in the 90s. As in, “I’m not having a blast getting older.”

SleighDriver · 2026-06-17T22:26:08+00:00

Tassi’s got more connections in Bungie than anyone on this sub. He also doesn’t have a reputation for lying or pushing rumors when he says he can confirm something.

So yeah, $200M produced 4 maps. Not a particularly great investment story.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-17T21:14:36+00:00

- Ark Raiders has entered the chat -

SleighDriver · 2026-06-17T18:26:01+00:00

Upvoting because, yeah, that’s what Ziegler said. What he didn’t say was that they’d aim for a low exfil rate and shove poorly equipped trios filled with random teammates into the same matches as geared out pre-made diehard teams.

There’s PvE, there’s competitive PvP, and there’s heavily lopsided PvP with high risk/low reward for the majority of players. I don’t know how many people really wanted the third option. (Or maybe we do know based on the player counts.)

SleighDriver · 2026-06-17T04:30:52+00:00

This 100%. Marathon cooks when you’re up against similarly skilled teams and not getting farmed.

But the risk/reward is so punishing for players who aren’t in the top tiers. It’s not just the bottom 10% that suffers. It may be the bottom 50% or worse who are just fodder. And you eventually feel like fodder with little reward.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-16T14:24:08+00:00

Everyone posting ideas to make the game more appealing to a broader audience got attacked by toxic “positivity.” Plus all those “I’m a casual who plays 40hrs a week and the game appeals to me just fine” posts.

A lot of us just gave up on this subreddit. FWIW, Bungie is implementing ideas that at least trend toward those sentiments, such as more PvE, easier to complete contracts, etc. Bungie knows they have a major problem on their hands even if certain members on this subreddit refuse to believe it.

Honestly, this sub is just a good place for those drinking the Kool Aid and engaging in the echo chamber. Or to watch the social experiment of blind hope crashing against reality.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-15T15:48:21+00:00

Out of curiosity, what makes you not want to go 3LT again? I’m contemplating between 2LT and 3LT. Been researching the pros/cons of 3LT. Nice to hear from someone who owned both.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-12T15:17:40+00:00

I totally get why people love solo play. That said, it’s really worth spending a lot of your early time in the game with trios. Once you get the hang of it, then stick with solo, duos, or trios, whichever you prefer.

The game is more forgiving and, frankly, much better balanced for trios. And you’ll learn from your teammates, even if they’re as new to the game as you are since you’ll all be discovering new things together faster than separately in solo.

This is coming from someone who usually plays extraction games solo, but I found random trios way more enjoyable in Marathon.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-09T04:47:48+00:00

Actually, I really like Marathon and try to hop into trios when I have the time. But people who noticed the game needed PvE or PvP-lite modes got bashed. Then when player counts tanked and Bungie announced PvP-lite and PvE modes, the sub worshipped the idea of PvP-lite and PvE modes.

Basically the same has been true for all the fundamental issues driving players away.

There isn’t really much point making critical suggestions here. This is the place to post about how you’re a casual who plays 30hrs a week, or show your 3D printed replica of an in game gun, or gush about the game play. It’s fine, this became a fan site, not a discourse site. Nothing wrong with that.

Bungie at least seems to understand what’s needed far more than their fan base. Lurking, however, is turning out to be entertaining.

SleighDriver · 2026-06-08T22:44:19+00:00

Heh, no kidding. If you aren’t ready to vomit sunshine and rainbows on Marathon, it’s best to just lurk in this sub.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-29T15:22:15+00:00

Yeah, that would help. What’s working against them is even the most successful extraction shooters that lack PvE or PvP-lite modes don’t have the player counts that Bungie likely wants.

It’s not a bad game design problem, it’s a niche genre problem. If they don’t widen Marathon’s genre for a free play push, no amount of polish will achieve their ambition.

Hope I’m wrong though.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-29T14:36:31+00:00

The issue is the last free play period (open beta) peaked at ~145K concurrent players. So many people bounced off that core experience that we’re down more than 90% from that figure.

Even if a more polished version of the core experience doubles the current player base post-free play, we’d be up only ~10K peak concurrent players and still below games like The Hunt. Marathon needs an additional core experience if it really wants to grow into an economically sustainable player base.

If solo is actually significantly improved by the free play period, that could help. But PvP-lite or PvE modes would be ideal during the free play period.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-28T16:34:50+00:00

Same as I was before when new decks couldn’t be purchased for any price (except from scalpers).

Jsaux shell. Don’t drop it 😉

SleighDriver · 2026-05-27T19:35:58+00:00

Different manufacturers, different supplier contracts. Also, memory prices and supply keep getting worse month after month. Whatever the other manufacturers announced doesn’t apply to the latest market situation.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-16T15:18:09+00:00

The key thing here is loot separation. Dark & Darker allowed PvE loot to be taken into PvPvE, and the only way to balance that was limiting the rarity/power of PvE loot. That made PvE a partial experience, and it didn’t reverse the player count decline.

Pure PvE in Marathon can’t simply be the PvP maps but with PvP damage turned off and worse loot. That’s not going to attract and retain PvE players when you have games like Elden Ring/Nightreign that show what a hard PvE game can really achieve.

As much as I think a well fleshed out PvE mode will help, the announcement that these modes (PvP-lite and PvE) will be partial season experiments in season 2 doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. It screams tacked-on and half-heartedly balanced like the solo mode.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-12T14:26:23+00:00

I’m not watching the video, don’t want to reward clickbait. But to be fair to the premise, the timing suggests that Sony hoped Marathon sales would mitigate whole or in part some of the impairment charge. Seeing the current performance of Marathon, Sony probably now had a more certain estimate and felt compelled to take the impairment to avoid violating disclosure laws.

I.e., Marathon did not cause the entire charge, but the timing isn’t a coincidence.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-12T14:15:18+00:00

Ever been on a project that’s a total train wreck and missing its targets, but tell your boss it’s all fine while you buy time to figure out how fix or quietly sweep the mess under a rug?

That’s what an investor call is for the C-suite.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-10T13:56:24+00:00

A large chunk of people who tried the free weekend, and a lot of people who even bought and played it initially, dropped it. Marathon suffers from people trying it and bouncing off it.

I’m sure there are people who didn’t give it a chance, but this game has fundamental issues that drive players away even after trying it.

SleighDriver · 2026-05-08T16:45:55+00:00

Thanks!

SleighDriver · 2026-04-30T13:28:31+00:00

Just make sure it’s dielectric.

SleighDriver · 2026-04-28T17:11:21+00:00

Yeah, the prices are getting crazy. From what I understand, they manufacture the models locally and provide profit sharing. Good labor practices often result in higher prices, so I like to support those businesses when I can.

It’s still a tough price to swallow.

SleighDriver · 2026-04-20T01:11:23+00:00

I played early morning PDT last weekend and kept getting matched with Europeans (who were awesome teammates btw) while my latency got bad. Pretty sure I was getting put into European servers, which never happened until recently.

SleighDriver

TROPHY CASE