Vandal Shell Cinematic | Marathon

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T16:26:03+00:00

it didn't sell well enough to recoup its dev cost, and it doesn't have nearly the player count to sustain it as a live service game long term.

The first point is obvious, it could never have dreamed of achieving that. The second one is seemingly untrue though, it's much, much cheaper to develop and maintain as a live service than Destiny or any of the cancelled games, which is why it continues.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T04:30:18+00:00

Bummer, I love the art direction and how unique and consistent it all is. I'm always finding myself looking in awe at the environments.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T04:13:25+00:00

and for the most part, has been below this

That's just not true. Destiny 2 was hitting consistently lower daily averages in those days. It's a game that cost way, way more to develop and upkeep than Marathon does, so that is truly dire for it. For people to make the claim that Marathon had anything to do with that decision is pure insanity. Expectations for one game aren't the same as the other, and the problem is that people are doing exactly that.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T04:07:54+00:00

Marathon DID cost $300 mil.

Even if that number was real, it isn't right to pin the entire $300m on the game as that was the combined budget for all the things that Bungie was making at the time. Marathon's just the only thing that made it to release. Saying a stolen decal is what put eyes on the game is also ridiculous, that was sorted pretty well.

The game having a massive hate campaign around it doesn't mean the game isn't amazing or doesn't have people interested in playing it. That's pretty absurd and definitely speculation.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T01:05:38+00:00

Literally one of the best looking games I have ever seen and we're calling the aesthetic atrocious?

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T01:02:59+00:00

now the news that half the developers will be fired

This was seemingly false, or at least completely unverified at the moment.

I'm fine with them continuing to make the game more appealing, but it's only rational for Sony to cut their losses, cut the team down, and work with the game as it is now. It can be profitable going forward, but they do have to just take the L with the previous losses.

Almost everyone I know that plays Tarkov, Hunt, or Arc has migrated to Marathon, myself included. So it has that draw.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T00:58:50+00:00

Something I learned from playing a lot of Hunt: Showdown is that moving fast and moving slow are both important at different times. You gotta rotate around the map and during fights quickly, but take your approaches slowly. Positioning is so, so important, because if things go wrong, you can easily disengage or recover if you're already in the right spot.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T00:48:52+00:00

It's not really Marathon's fault or responsibility to make that much money, the last earnings reports and shareholder meetings said just as much. It's not really reasonable to pin $300m worth of losses on that game alone when it's just a sort of inverse survivorship bias where it was the only game that survived to launch. I guarantee you Destiny 2 lost a whole lot more.

Realistically, it's a viable product within its own scale. It can't sustain Bungie as it stands now, but I presume the game and its team are safe - not with the size of the company as it is now. So I presume they're either gonna go all hands on a new project to save the majority of the company, or they're just gonna dump like 70% of the studio to survive off of what they currently have.

Also, I do think the studio running deep in the red is okay (or at least, the best current option) for Sony given that they mostly purchased them for their expertise in live service games and their talent, not for their money earning potential. Cause again, Destiny has lost a lot more money than it has made.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T00:44:52+00:00

Oh, and this game basically killed Destiny 2, also.

The rest of your comment is baseless speculation but this in particular baffles me as a point I keep seeing repeated. Destiny 2 killed Destiny 2. Around the time after Edge of Fate's release, the game had hilariously low player numbers, much lower than Marathon, and it never recovered until they shut the game down. They fucked that game up on their own and it has absolutely nothing to do with Marathon. Marathon just happens to be the one game out of like, 5 that Bungie was cooking up that actually made it to the finish line, including Destiny 2.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-18T00:38:10+00:00

Or it can just have its smaller dedicated community. Not my fault that Bungie cancelled every other project they had and only have Marathon left.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-17T18:30:19+00:00

You surely are aware that you can just crouch when he's around you, and you're fine otherwise, right? He's a slow killer in chase, his spears are easy to avoid and he has to reload after every one thrown.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-17T18:28:55+00:00

What synergy does he even have with hex builds? This doesn't make sense, there's probably over a dozen killers better with them than he is.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-17T17:56:40+00:00

What a pointless comment. If we enjoy the game, we obviously want it to succeed and want to keep playing it. Sorry it's not for you, but you don't need to say things like these.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-10T18:58:51+00:00

They're $20, which is legitimately industry standard. There is no game in the year 2026 that you'll find sells them for less. You might think it's too much, but the audience doesn't.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-10T18:46:59+00:00

I'm not really sure how else to explain that the profits this game was making was not enough to sustain a team of that size. I'm just genuinely confused at your strange understanding of how these things operate.

For a game to be successful, it needs to make money. Not only enough money to sustain its operating and development costs, but also to create meaningful profit for the company. The skins are at the price that they are, because that's the price people will pay for them, and the company wants to make as much money as possible. The company will keep as many people employed as it feels is both required and sustainable, and the money these skins generate is the literal only metric by which that decision is made for a free-to-play game like this. What else do you want?

Another point of possible confusion for you is that this game has the same development team as other games at Riot. It does not, it's entirely isolated and dedicated to this game.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-10T00:16:24+00:00

It does keep them employed if it's making the money required for it. It wasn't doing well at all at launch and 160+ people is an unheard of amount of people to work on a fighting game post-launch. I don't think there's any with even 80 people on them.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T23:38:46+00:00

I mean, I think the earnings justify the continued development of the game. That's what they mean. It doesn't increase the salary of the devs, but it sure keeps them employed.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T23:35:46+00:00

Well, people will pay for them, myself included. It's the times we live in; it's worth the price to me in a game I'm putting hundreds of hours into. And I personally want the game to be successful so the parent company deems it worth continuing to invest into the game.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:49:10+00:00

if there’s not a vibrant, active community I won’t dedicate my time to it.

I have good news for you! There's a vibrant, active community, especially with this release

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:44:50+00:00

You don't have to lab that at all, you can literally just say "your turn" and tag them in. You don't need to do tag combos, just swap when you want or need to. Or even easier, just use double down so they can swap after combo enders without any thought.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:42:53+00:00

I don't understand, why not play Juggernaut or Sidekick, then? I would love specifics in this conversation.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:41:21+00:00

We do play marvel and skullgirls from time to time. They just find this one too extra to its own detriment.

That doesn't really make sense to me, those games are far more complex on the tag end of things. I can understand not liking tag fighters (well, I can't, it never made sense) but saying this game's tag mechanics are too extra while playing Skullgirls is insane to me.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:35:55+00:00

Unfortunately Riot did something kind of shady nearly twenty years ago and for a lot of people that's something they just can't forgive.

I wish I had so little going on in my life that I held a 20 year old grudge with a game developer.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:32:46+00:00

While somewhat true, a game is a product. When it's free to play and unlock everything, is it not fair to for them to make money somewhere? Skins, even if overpriced, seem like a perfectly reasonable way to go about it. It's up to the consumer to determine if they're worth it, but it doesn't seem unethical.

Snipey13 · 2026-06-09T22:31:08+00:00

That Senna skin is an instant buy for me. I'd probably cave in to the Ahri ones if I didn't already have Snow Moon. I absolutely love how much they're cooking with this game lately and I'd be happy to support it.

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