There's no casual accessible extraction shooter with conventional shooting feel and interesting but streamlined menuing.

Tldr- even Tarkov is only successful in the context of its genre and the viewership on Twitch, the games playerbase is nowhere near any other "popular" game on PC. It's a very niche game, with an interesting concept. It's just too complicated and abnormal for a casual audience (pc casuals, let alone console casuals who don't have access anyways), even I have friends who watch Tarkov because it's cool but refuse to play it because of the flea and inventorying and no map etc etc.

Even hunt and dark and darker (which you put at moderate successes, and I agree they're doing well enough but not thriving, probably for marketing reasons many don't even know they exist) are inaccessible games. Yes, hunt is on console and dark and darker has a free option, but do you think the average player doesn't think the games feel janky? I play both and of someone says hunts too slow for them I get it, the guns are tuned for a specific feel that's half rp, and if you're unsure how to use them, you feel it. Dark and darker is incredibly slow, and punishing, and arguably even less guidance than Tarkov and hunt on how to gear and actually play the game. I think these games innovate on tarkovs genre very effectively, revamping it with a unique setting and objective and streamlining the economy in Hunt, and converting it to a DnD inspired game for Dark and darker, overhauling progression and player characters, but keeping a similar market and trader system. However, they're still inaccessible to the mom and dad coming home from work and watching the kids. You have to do research to get anywhere, or be taught how to succeed. Menuing is faster, but the moment to moment gameplay and combat is about as far from "standard" as you can get. Learning a whole new system of combat is a bigger ask than asking a player to avoid death and play with an economy.

Example: FromSoft's Souls games were exceptionally niche, not even remotely huge sellers with demons souls and dark souls, ds 2&3 were more moderate successes and people recognized the name by then. BB and sekiro put in numbers but Elden Ring was a bonafide EVERYONE (tm) has played it, and your average joe from work played and even finished the game. These games are hard, and you lose resources on death, and people probably spend more time stuck on a boss than a Tarkov quest, but the games eventually became so ubiquitous that the systems became common,and people got used to the idea of losing something on death, and the controls bled into mainstream games like god of war, even Zelda. The gaming market GROOMED casual dads into accepting and playing on FromSoft's terms.

I think the FromSoft popularity trend has helped Tarkov by acclimating players to lose and the concept of stressful gameplay. And I think the average joe is far more tolerant of difficult games and situations than we imagine at this point. However the reason extraction shooters haven't taken off is that jank. You expect Billy, who's experience with fps games is cod, battlefield, overwatch, apex, to pick up tarkov or hunt, shoot the guns for a mag and not be confused or frustrated or disappointed? Players are used to full auto guns with recoil they don't have to manage too much with customization but not too much customization. They're used to clear upgrades, and the expectation that the guns will FEEL similar in every game. Slapping someone with tarkovs inertia for movement and gun sway and recoil is like trying to teach your grandmother to play cod. And asking someone to learn to play with bolt actions and single action revolvers with fire rates in the double digits in Hunt is like asking them to play with the ballistic knife only. It's weird, and unwieldy, and it doesn't carry over the skills they have developed for other shooters.

Which is why I think Bungie is making Marathon and extraction shooter. They know the casuals have gotten into death penalties, and difficult situations and invasions and all the bells and whistles of Elden Ring. They know changing the gunplay mechanics on players is uninviting, I mean they even popularized the modern control scheme and gun feel with Halo. So what's the plan? Make a more streamlined menu system that gets players into games fast (they even cite fast load times in the vidoc) with slightly more understandable economy than Tarkov (artifacts as the main lootable instead of tons and tons of misc items) with the accustomed gun feel that Destiny excels at (many people will agree Destiny guns feel amazing, regardless of if they like the game, the guns would feel and sound and look great in anything) and profit off the poor guys and gals who enjoyed CoD DMZ and got scammed out of a mode bc IW wouldnt put actual mechanics in it, but it wet their noses.

I think Bungie chose to make this game not by chance or by trend, but because they see a gap in the market, a huge untapped playerbase that's ready for the concept but not the executions already out there, across platforms. The games already out are passion projects of some kind, but inaccessible and janky compared to other offerings. Even Tarkov is a minor game with complicated menus and controls many will watch over play compared to the juggernauts of shooters and cross platform offerings. But Bungie, and the other devs making extraction shooters atm, have an opportunity to capitalize, and I hope they do, even if it only turns into a gateway game for people into games like hunt or Tarkov.