Wind the clocks back to last April and the tumultuous fallout following Marathon’s closed-alpha. Now, nine months later and less than a month from release, the game’s current state and the community’s sentiment is largely optimistic. At surface level, Marathon now looks a completely different game, with reworked art design, animations, and atmosphere leading the post-alpha turnaround. Yet, there is still understandable disquiet. The server slam – a free-to-participate stress test – might just dispel the gravest concerns, but whether you’re hopeful or worn out, here’s fifteen things to know before buying. If there was ever a game which needed a second look, it’s this.
It’s Bungie’s New Extraction Shooter Reboot
If you’ve been living under a rock, or you saw the post-alpha furor and kept this at arm’s length, listen up. Marathon is the upcoming extraction shooter reboot from Bungie – the creators of Halo and Destiny. The same studio brought the original single player FPS trilogy to Mac players in the mid-90s, while this modern reimagining is a multiplayer PvPvE with loot and factions. So far, not a lot of similarity – however, there is connective tissue: both exist within the same corpo-sci-fi universe, sharing complex lore, mysterious abandoned colonies, questionable AI, and cybernetic implants. Still not seeing it? Think of it this way: the new Marathon is a homage to the old, remodelled with the sleekness and speed of modern competitive shooters.
Your Role as a Runner
The Marathon project was a colonisation mission which went mysteriously awry. Now, financially invested corporations are moving to recoup their losses, descending on Tau Ceti IV to extract anything of value – except, it’s not the board members who’ll be donning spacesuits. No, scraping the planet clean falls on you. You’re a Runner – a disposable, cybernetic mercenary who traded their human body for the chance to strike gold. The job is simple: get in, grab whatever items or intel your corporate overlord desires, and get out. Working against you are other crews competing for the same spoils. Survival hinges on adapting to other players’ threat, whilst navigating through robotic AI guardians that patrol throughout the derelict complexes. Along the way, you’ll discover the origins of the original settlers’ downfall too.
Factions Drive Progression
Factions are the nucleus in Marathon’s narrative cell, each with distinct goals, cultures, and aspirations that drive your progression depending on whom you choose to align. These organisations aren’t just aesthetic flavour, but shape your overall experience through the objectives they set. The imposingly rich Traxus, for instance, demands you return only with the most exotic materials. MIDA spreads anarchy through explosions and malware hacks, while Arachne, specifically, wants you to kill other Runners. Whichever factions you work with, each has their own upgrade path which unlocks as your reputation grows. The highest tier rewards in each faction’s tree are Capstones; specific milestones in your progression that strengthen your base stats throughout a season while yielding gold-tier rewards.
Three-squad Teamplay is the Focus
Either with your mates or via crew autofill, you’ll be dropped onto Tau Ceti IV’s terra firma in teams of three, with maps accommodating up to eighteen players per match. Squads of two are viable, as is entering the fray solo, albeit with potentially significant competitive disadvantages depending on your objectives. There is scope for soloists to team up mid-run, with proximity chat between single Runners auto-enabled.
Six Runner Shells (and One Scavenger) at Launch
Runner shells are your player archetypes; their personality matrix its unique characteristics. The Destroyer is a combat-ready brute, Recon an intel specialist, Assassin an agent of subterfuge, Triage a field medic, Thief a light-handed hoarder, and Vandal an agile aggravator. Adopting your chosen shell will be as much about meeting your own playstyles as it is matching the suit’s matrix to your designated objectives. A suite of customisations will tailor each shell for maximum impact – more on that in the next entry – while the Rook is a low-risk, loadout-limited outfit designed for mid-run drop-ins. Simply get in and scavenge as much as you can; effective if you’ve been on a losing run.
Implants and Cores Mark the Game’s Customisation Tools
While shells are distinct, biomechanical silhouettes – all cybernetic implants and battle-hardened armour – they are malleable via implants and cores, Marathon’s suite of customisation tools. Implants are universal, shell-agnostic gear slot upgrades suited to specific body parts. They’ll increase stats like Runner speed or shield capacity whilst also offering unique perks, but can be lost upon death. Cores, on the other hand, modify tactical abilities beyond simple stat boosts. They’re high-impact augmentations which can dramatically alter how a shell performs. Combining both implants and cores gives extensive opportunity for buildcrafting – customisations complex enough for specific strategies and niche playstyles alike.
Weapon Rarity Takes Influence from Destiny
Destiny and its sequel both adopted a colour-coded weapon rarity scale which Marathon is set to replicate. From standard gray weapons through to prestige gold items, understanding a weapon’s value – and perceived usefulness – will be as immediate in Marathon as it was in Bungie’s earlier shooters. Scaled by equip-able attachments, recoil, reload speeds, and more, you’ll obviously want the rarest guns in your arsenal. But, as is the extraction loop’s core, death has consequences. Bringing it to battle always risks losing it.
Each Zone Demands Specific Approaches
Marathon will feature four maps at launch, each with unique loot, environmental threat, enemy density, and more. Likewise, each zone displays a distinct approach to level design. Perimeter, on the outskirts of the abandoned outpost, is open and wide, with clear sight lines yet opportunities to hide. Bungie describe this map as Marathon’s most approachable. Dire Marsh is a misty backwater, pockmarked by alien anomalies and research stations. Here is where the narrative evolves, and ideas start to form on how the expedition went dark. Outpost is a still-functioning UESC fortification; small, dynamic, and more vertical. Here, amidst a gauntlet of watchful machines, is where some of the game’s strongest loot hides.
The endgame map is aboard the UESC Marathon itself. Dubbed Cryo Chamber, it’s the sternest test yet of your learned survival skill. The hardest, most hostile map in the game, missions here feel more like heists, where careful plans, solid equipment, and a little luck brings the most lucrative rewards, and where the game’s central mystery finally unravels.
Bungie Insists Marathon Isn’t Pay-to-Win
Yes, the grind is always a hot topic in competitive shooter spaces, and there are understandable conversations surrounding Marathon’s loot mechanics and how achievable it’ll be to succeed without spending more than the cost of the base game. Well, Bungie is insisting you won’t have to spend big to win. On the one hand, completing the game’s codex – a compendium of discoverables – unlocks skins, cosmetics, and other rewards. But, on the other hand, faction progress, cores, implants, level upgrades, and so on, will be available to purchase separately via microtransaction. So really, we’ll have to play to learn the pace of Marathon’s progression.
You’ll Need a Bungie.net Account to Play
As officially confirmed, a Bungie.net account is mandatory to access Marathon. If you’re on PlayStation, you’ll of course need a PSN account too, although for PC and Xbox players this won’t be a requirement. So, while Sony demanded Helldivers 2 PC players open a PSN account for security and crossplay enabling – and subsequently backtracked – there’ll be no such stipulation with Marathon.
What’s Working Post-Alpha
The lukewarm response to last April’s closed alpha nearly spelled disaster for Marathon. But, Bungie has addressed concerns, most prominently in the game’s environment. Feedback centred on a world which didn’t feel dangerous, and that its clean lines felt sterile. Now, Marathon’s post-alpha world is worn with grit and texture, while weather showcases a dynamism that was neglected before. The sun beams bleach-like on bold colours, while biting wind and monochromatic rain feel tangibly imposing. Tau Ceti IV, now, is full of realistic contrast, and, in games, realism imparts danger. Elsewhere, Bungie’s gunplay is still best-in-class, with reworked reloading animations, for instance, distancing Marathon from accusations it reuses Destiny assets. A corpse decay system is more than a new immersion-supporting mechanic, but gives you a direct indication as to how near your next confrontation is. Sound design is sharp and informative, with material contact emitting sounds which pinpoint lurking danger.
What’s Still a Concern
Difficulty balance remains hard to parse despite Marathon’s recent influx of marketing material. The concern is that the core gameplay loop may be too watered down for extraction veterans, while the skill ceiling might initially be too high for casuals. The retail price propped up by microtransactions, as we alluded to earlier, is understandably troublesome. And, the elephant in the room is the colossal price Sony paid for Bungie’s acquisition; we’re not going to debate the subjectivity in “value for money”, but there are worries that with an undeniably exorbitant outlay comes the possibility that Marathon will be extremely risk averse. In other words, behind the accomplished art design and gunplay hides a generic shooter.
Release Date, Platforms, and Price
Marathon is set to release on March 5th to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. As we’ve said already, this isn’t free-to-play, with the Standard Edition retailing at £34.99 / $39.99. Full crossplay and cross-save will be available day one.
Three Editions – Standard, Deluxe, and Collector’s
If you want the full game and access to seasonal content updates, but consider cosmetics unnecessary fluff, then the Standard Edition is the one for you. The Deluxe Edition, however, does offer cosmetics as an incentive, with Midnight Decay weapon and Runner styles included alongside 200 SILK reward pass tokens and a single premium rewards pass voucher for £49.99 / $59.99. The Collector’s Edition actually comes in two variants: one with a game code for $229,99, and everything included in the Deluxe Edition, and one without a game code retailing at £164.99 / $169.99. Either way, you’ll get your hands on some premium unboxing: Sekiguchi WEAVEworm collectible, postcards, and embroidered patch. All pre-orders included a handful of bonus cosmetics too, as well as some rewards that can be redeemed in Destiny 2.
PC Requirementsa
To play Marathon at the minimum spec you’ll need the following in your setup: Intel Core i5-6600 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, or Intel Arc A580 8GB, with ReBAR on, GPU, and 8GB RAM. Recommended specs as per the game’s Steam listing include an Intel Core i5-10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3500 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2060 6GB, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB, or Intel Arc A770 16 GB with ReBAR GPU, and 16GB RAM.
