Marathon

The game is beautiful. The voiceovers are great. The game mode can be painful, but that's what it is. Here's what I dislike: the PvP is too much, and playing solo isn't a good idea at all. I wish to see more servers where I can choose to play with English speakers, because otherwise I'll have to kill everybody since they're coming to get you. Even if I have an option to talk to others out there or revive them, the idea is there but the execution is very poor.

I recommend this game for people who seriously want a challenge and want things to do in an actual game, skins to unlock with tasks, gunplay is god tier and the adrenaline from killing another team is amazing. I think the story is a little stagnant right now but hoping they can pick up a more direct story soon to keep players engaged especially more casual player. I have about 30 hours here on steam and 175 hours on Xbox, this game is great it just requires skill and knowledge and you can learn by getting in there and playing a lot just like R6 or other similar games

its ight

Edited review after 48 hours of play time: This has become one of my favorite games of all time, so this pains me to say this, but I cannot currently recommend this game at all. While the game's art direction, aesthetic, and environment are gorgeous, the game is in a very bad state. Below are some reasons why I feel this way: 1) A large chunk of the player base has quit, and more are quitting in droves by the day. Thus, it does take long to find a match. 2) The remaining player base is largely made up of griefers and hackers. Right now, most people are not completing contracts (the contracts are missions that honestly seem like they were supposed to be part of a separate, single player campaign that were shoehorned into the PvP portion). This is happening for two reasons: (a) the contracts are boring and terrible, and (b) the griefers are cheaters are simply wiping the lobby 1-2min in and quitting to wipe the next lobby. 3) Due to #2, you are unable to play the game at all in most cases because of the griefers and cheaters wiping every single lobby. 4) The cheaters are using (a) ESP, (b) insta-kill one shot, (c) using special abilities from whatever shell they want while not even using the shell that requires said abilities (for example, using Assassin's invisibility with Vandal or Recon, which do not have an invisibility trait). 5) Bungie locked most of the fun and high-level "loot" within the end game map, Cryo Archives. The problem with this? Bungie locks certain maps until certain days (rumor is due to low player count splitting up the player base), so you can only play Cryo Archives on certain days. Even worse, you can't play Cryo Archives unless you have a loadout worth at least 5,000 in-game credits, but you can't get those credits because most of the high level gear is in Cryo Archives, and what little gear you find elsewhere you can never extract with due to #2, the lobby wipers. Then, even if you do get into Cryo Archives, the current meta is to do what? You guessed it, wipe the entire lobby within 2min, with the current best that I have seen so far at around 48 seconds. That's right, you can spend days or more working on earning the opportunity to enter Cryo Archives (part of the game you paid for), only for griefers, exploiters, and cheaters to end your run within 48 seconds. 6) There's barely any content at all. There are only four small maps with not much to do in them, and only about four teams ever spawn in a map per match, with the max team size currently sitting at three players, meaning each match only has a maximum of 12 players. With barely any PvE to battle, only eight other players to worry about, and garbage loot, there's almost nothing to play for, which further feeds into the toxic lobby wiping meta. To put this into perspective, I have over 300 hours of play time in Battlefield 6, and still have new stuff to do. Whereas in Marathon, I have only played for about 48 hours and I have 10/14 steam achievements, have already done Cryo Archives (end game content), am halfway to season level 100, and am almost maxed with every Faction (contracts), and have nothing else to do. Think about that, within 48 hours, I have practically played the entire game already...that is crazy for a release from a AAA studio and publisher, especially for the retail price of the game. I got it on sale for almost half off and I still think that's too much, honestly. In the end, I do not recommend that you purchase this game because you might wind up like me: loving the game, but being disappointed in its lack of development and management to where you are always going to wish it was something more due to its potential. This game absolutely should have had a single player campaign with an arena multiplayer. I think it would have exploded in long-term popularity if Bungie did like COD and Battlefield where they have a regular multiplayer, the extraction and Battle Royale modes, and a single player campaign. Most other major FPS games release with all of the above modes to please everyone, and it works. Bungie, however, gambled on combining single player traits (faction contracts) with arena multiplayer traits (map sizes and gunplay) with an extraction shooter setup and a Battle Royale playstyle, which failed miserably. I don't know what they were thinking with this game, but save your money for real. ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Old review below: Okay, so if you have ever read the space biological horror novel called "Annihilation (Southern Reach Triology)" by Jeff VanderMeer, Marathon, to me, is that book in video game form. Your playable characters, called "Runners (Shells)," are essentially sent to scavenge and investigate an agriculturally colonized planet that has biological anomalies which may threaten or help secure the future existence of humanity. Everyone playing online picks a Runner (Shell) to use and then you all jump into one of four maps to scavenge and investigate. From here, you must choose to avoid other Runners or fight them to the death in order to complete your assigned mission(s). That's it, that's the whole game in a nutshell. It definitely gets more interesting as you progress through the ranks and learn how to solo wipe squads, but the game still needs deeper development along with that PvE-only mode. Why the need for a PvE-only mode? Well, like most extraction shooters, there exists a toxic playstyle where entire teams camp exfils the minute the game starts. Essentially, players are choosing to wipe lobbies and/or troll exfils or gear/loot instead of completing contracts as the game intends. What makes this worse is how your shells have abilities, with one of the shells' abilities being a built-in wall hack. Another shell's ability provides a radar map of nearby players' locations. Then you have a shell that allows you to cloak yourself with invisibility. Team sizes go up to three players, so you will commonly see teams running all three of these shells in order to have built-in ESP hacks. Combine that with the exfil camping and lobby-wiping metas and you can see how PvP in this game is already cooked. Bungie has basically promised a PvE-only mode in the near future (they already tested it live a few weeks ago), so this will be a welcomed permanent addition. Note that, not only are there only four maps, but also that Bungie locks certain maps and modes weekly due to an overall low player count; it is believed that they are trying to force more people into less modes in order to make the rounds seem full of players. Even worse, you have six factions that you need to upgrade, but some of their contracts can only be fulfilled on certain maps within certain modes, making it difficult to steadily progress your character. With only four small, time-gated maps, not many PvE hostiles, a convoluted upgrade system, and a busted PvP environment, I don't see the game surviving very long (as in a healthy player count long term). I hope the upcoming PvE-only mode revitalizes the game (providing players a reprieve from the PvP toxicity) because it is absolutely gorgeous, has a wonderful soundtrack, is very fun to play, and is just entirely different from what has been offered to gamers in recent years. As annoying as the PvP is right now, Marathon is definitely one of my favorite games of all time. As long as you understand the above, then I recommend the game.

The game is pretty fun, I think its worth it on sale for sure. The gunplay really scratched an itch for me, I thought it worked well overall. The art style was really pretty, especially the various contact animations. There's a couple of weaknesses I can identify with the game however that may apply to you too. There isn't really any hook to the game that made me want to keep playing long-term. The player count is pretty low which makes me worry for the future of the game and hesistate to put time into it, though I do believe they'll stick with it for at least a year. I think it's a grind the game for a week or three, then probably drop it type game. If thats enough for you, then buy it. But if that's not enough, that's pretty valid.

I will freely admit that prior to release, I thought this game would be terrible and not at all worthy of being a follow-up to the original Marathon trilogy. Then I tried it during the initial server slam weekend, and my heart got snagged hook, line, and sinker. I don't care about how much Sony spent on Bungie, how much Bungie spent on development, or the freaking player count; all I know is that the quality of the work that the development team puts into this game oozes out its every pore. The movement is amazing, the gunplay feels great, and the sound design is possibly the most phenomenal I've ever experienced in a video game. I'll be playing this game for the duration; I've barely played anything else since it came out. Maybe, someday, I'll even get good at it.

very fun

Better than Arc Raiders, argue with the wall.

gunplay is like no other game out there!!! Hands down!!

having a good time overall the designs of most the characters are pretty good for me and I cant wait for season 3 and pve modes and maps to sink my teeth more and more into the game i wish there was a singleplayer campaign and even if this game shutsdown i realy hope the ip can get a second chance with a more focused singleplayer style love the art and music andfeel real sad that i found a game like this only for it fall hard on its face but i will enjoy my time with it while i can. its got a real hyper sci-fi feeling that i havent experienced anywhere else and somthing i realy wish other developers will try as well.