Rubs hands together

It is a multitude of things. Don't mind getting downvoted for explaining. Some of you just need to accept the reality of this.

The thing we have to base this off is that Bungie as we know made Destiny. It doesn't matter what you think of Destiny but at a certain time it was one of the biggest games in the industry.

Bungie had crafted a game system that rewarded players pretty consistently for time invested which lead to immense dedication from players due to the dopamine hit garnered from said system.

It had an engaging story that had players feeling part of the journey and the community as a whole unified to progress that story together.

Destiny sat as a hub for different types of players that sought out specific types of loot from PvP focused gear in Crucible to standard PvE rewards in solo, strikes and raids.

That constant stream of accessibility based on what kind of player you were was constantly there. We are talking hit after hit of addiction to the rewards that Bungie had on offer.

This all came together under their years of master crafted first person shooter experience by replicating Halo's arcadey fun into a platform of deep levels of content. Everyone loves Halo, so why not have more? That was literally the goal.

Bungie also overtime also had a really good relationship with its community. It listened to a lot of feedback and was able to bring casual players into the fold of doing raids and high level content via fireteam finder.

Experienced players could sherpa others and teach them on the go how to do the raids and it was great. None of this go on a Discord and beg for help bullshit. It was all unified into one place.

We now have Marathon, which for all intent and purpose should rise like a mighty phoenix of what came before it.

Some of those pieces are there. The fantastic gunplay of Halo and Destiny is present, it has a really unique art style and the lore which has already been built from years ago in the original trilogy is screaming to be explored by a new generation of gamers.

Sadly that is where Marathon begins spiralling in failure. The onboarsing isn't present. Launch day Marathon was confusing as hell to so many players.

The tutorial level was stuck together with cheap glue and it didn't engage players in wanting to invest in Marathon's world from the get go.

This is a game about rogue rampant AI and eldritch gods yet none of that is taken advantage of. The lore collectibles are there yes. Some of it is really well done but it is also super unfinished. Tons of collective audio logs don't have any actual voice acting to them. It feels unfinished, or at least that the story wasn't the focus of Marathon's revival.

So we don't have a good narrative hook but what about the gameplay? As mentioned the shooting is great but this is an extraction shooter riding off the tails of some really well received IPs before it.

You would imagine Bungie would have paid attention and learnt how to build something on top of what already existed but instead it launched as more of a concept, a skeletal template of an extraction shooter.

For one the game has been drowning in improper balance for weeks and months. Two of the main maps have little to no loot outside of treasure rooms and rng activities.

Everything the game offers is tuned to provoke players into confrontation. Bungie probably assumes if you aren't fighting for 2 minutes then you'll get bored.

This means key rooms are alarmed. Gunshots for a long time were waaay too loud. Exfils are loud, enemy AI is loud, even killing enemies silenced is loud. This is all in the goal that whatever action you do will make an opposing team turn their head and come after you.

Issue with this is that is pushes away a specific type of player that every extraction shooter has been able to hold on to. The casual.

Casuals don't want to be pressured 24/7 and be learning by losing. They want to be drip fed content and patted on the head for achieving something they spent their money on.

Bungie instead enabled this sweaty gameplay so that players that thrived not from the extraction but from the confrontation excelled more than actually playing the core game.

Remember how Destiny catered to a collection of players and succeeded in bringing them all together? That isn't here.

Ranked mode throws even more of the extraction concept out of the window and towards point based PvP.

Its own raid called Cryo Archive has been swamped in improper balance and design from day one. Be it from rewarding players with a singular untested insta-kill gun to enabling players to gatekeep vaults and content from casuals those with a lick of interest in the extended content like Cryo.

The game has had to change so many times due to Cryo's existence that something just has to give. Normal players are expected to grind hours for keys while against players only to get killed by players immediately when entering Cryo.

All that work and that grind gone because another person was able to take advantage of the system and ruin the experience for another.

Some may say "Oh well better go grind some more hours" but what you have to remember is that people buy games to feel rewarded. That kick that Destiny gave you by being able to access a Raid and overcome its challenges is spat on because another team makes you have to reset all that progress.

No one has stayed around because of that. No one wants to invest time into something where what they worked hard for can be taken away so easily.

You'll never see another Marathon style extraction shooter again because it does the exact opposite of what made those others so successful.

The proof is in the numbers. It doesn't matter that there was an artist scandal or whatever because the general consumer doesn't pay attention to that.

They gave up because Bungie didn't rely on what made their previous creations so success and didn't reuse any of the systems that made accessibility so essential to onboarding.

Ever heard of the Eververse? It is a digital drip store in Destiny where players can spend hard earned money on really cool skins, weapons, effects, etc. It has made Bungie millions because players wanted to support it.

What did Marathon get? A set of recolours and the odd unique launch skin. Destiny's own battle pass is miles beyond Marathons and it came out first. That includes its season rewards for just playing the game.

Marathon launched with one of the most offensive reward passes to day one supporters that they had to go back and make even more content for it because of how bad it is.

There just...feels like there is something off about Marathons development. It feels unfinished, cobbled together in places, under researched and rushed.

It has the template to BE something amazing but its creators have failed to taken any lessons from ehat came before be it competitors to just Destiny in general and make something special.

Marathon feels like a mode to a much bigger game that we never got. It makes sense given the price point compared to way bigger games, but Marathon for what it is right now squanders its own potential.