LinguisticGoblin Member Jul 19, 2020 1,293 It’s Just Over For ‘Marathon’ Marathon has always been teetered on the edge of future failure, but now that seems set in stone after recent events. www.forbes.com Article recapping some of the issues Marathon is facing, from the recent plagiarism discovery to how the closed alpha performed relative to competitors and general community sentiments around the attempt to make an extraction shooter that can peel hardcore players off the likes of Tarkov while still holding casual appeal, as well as Paul's thoughts on what the likely outcome of all this will be for the game and Bungie. I've tried to put this off for a while now, giving Marathon the benefit of the doubt in terms of fixing what ails it, and maybe snagging an audience that's large enough to make it at least sustainable. But no, it's over. I can't dispute this anymore. This has probably always been true, but the events of the past week have cemented it. I will get into the livestream and plagiarism and all that later, but this is a long, long list of what's gone wrong in the past, what's currently going wrong, and a future that does not look any brighter. Click to expand... Click to shrink... […] The idea that this is an extraction shooter that should use a hero model has not landed well at all. It seems woefully unbalanced with full invisibility and wallhacks and things that should just not be in this genre. And it destroys the idea of making a fully custom character like other games, something most players like. It feels like a solution where a problem did not exist. An experiment to make the game stand out, but it's just made it worse. None of this was helped that at the exact same time, Marathon's Alpha was interrupted by an ARK Raiders Alpha, a much more traditional extraction shooter and a much better one, by all accounts. More polished, more fun, more expected features found in extraction shooters. All you have to do is look at the fact that ARK Raiders' playercount went up every single day of its Alpha where Marathon's almost always went down. By the end, it was sub-20% of what it started with. Twitch viewers were even worse, going from 150,000 at launch as big streamers tried it, crashing to 1-3,000 a few days later near the end, where big chunks of that might even be one or two Destiny streamers alone. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   signal Member Oct 28, 2017 43,240 If it does get cancelled I hope it's just in its current form and a new Marathon of another genre or something comes out. Seems like there was a lot people enjoyed, if not the game itself.   glaurung Member Oct 26, 2017 2,245 Estonia I agree that if they stick to the current release schedule with the currently planned contents, this will be a very hard sell.   Gman! Avenger Oct 25, 2017 1,323 Dallas It's a real shame that the one thing Marathon did really well - the art style - was tainted by their own doing.   fudgybrownie Member Dec 15, 2024 10 Another one of those paul tassi articles   Butter Member Sep 26, 2024 109 I'm so torn on Marathon. On one hand I don't want a studio to fail and people to lose jobs but on the other hand I do want Sony's live service push to fail.   thankyoumerzbow Prophet of Truth Member Dec 8, 2020 12,206 arC* raiders   Xeno Member Oct 25, 2017 2,354 Did he really write a whole ass article and couldn't get the name "ARC Raiders" right?   Fiery Phoenix Member Oct 26, 2017 6,314 fudgybrownie said: Another one of those paul tassi articles Click to expand... Click to shrink... My thoughts exactly. Watch him write about his favorite playstyle in 6 months.  LossAversion The Merchant of ERA Member Oct 28, 2017 11,687 Marathon was always a hard sell for someone like me. I enjoy the slower pace of extraction shooters like DMZ and Tarkov but the gameplay I was seeing from Marathon looked more like Apex Legends. The whole appeal of extraction modes is the slow pace and the thrill of encountering real players OR avoiding them at all costs. If anything, I would like to see extraction shooters that focus much more on the PVE aspect of things and ARC Raiders seems to be much closer to that. Marathon just reads as another sweaty twitch shooter. The art style was cool but uh... yeah. It won't surprise me if this game is DOA.   RoKKeR Member Oct 25, 2017 17,110 I'm not exactly looking forward to the game but even still this feels a bit premature.   Rumenapp Forza Photographer Member Nov 9, 2017 17,451 Best of luck to Bungie with Marathon or not. Competitive multiplayer games is a very hard market to crack right now.  DNAbro Member Oct 25, 2017 30,045 Read it this morning and yeah… The vibes are just bad, I still want to try it but after the mid reception and plagiarism scandal it feels like it's dead at the starting line. An open beta will be do or die for it.  Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,446 But yeah, from the podcasts I'd listened to where both were mentioned...Arc Raiders had far more positivity thrown its way.  Jimbo Fisher Member Jul 17, 2024 1,352 At this point how hard would it be for them to just throw in a few traditional multiplayer modes? Some team deathmatch and capture the flag? Feels like that's the only way to save this game's mass market appeal.   Mr Evil 37 Member Mar 7, 2022 27,762 signal said: If it does get cancelled I hope it's just in its current form and a new Marathon of another genre or something comes out. Seems like there was a lot people enjoyed, if not the game itself. Click to expand... Click to shrink... There's no way it gets cancelled. It's too far into development. Edit: I'm obviously talking about it being cancelled prior to release, not what happened with Concord.  Last edited: Monday at 11:16 AM Tbm24 Member Oct 25, 2017 22,980 Well, author is setting up future content to backtrack on I guess. Jimbo Fisher said: At this point how hard would it be for them to just throw in a few traditional multiplayer modes? Some team deathmatch and capture the flag? Feels like that's the only way to save this game's mass market appeal. Click to expand... Click to shrink... If the game is going to fail, let it fail try by to be what it wants to be. Not tack on standard modes just because. No thanks.  ZeroMaverick Member Mar 5, 2018 5,867 Xeno said: Did he really write a whole ass article and couldn't get the name "ARC Raiders" right? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Right? For a second I was like, "Holy shit an extraction shooter with dinosaurs is gonna be awesome!" Lol  Stibbs Member Feb 8, 2023 4,247 The 518 If Paul, THE Bungie guy is out than this really is cooked Should have made Destiny 3 when you had the chance guys  keyrodi Member Feb 19, 2018 1,065 Frankly, even ignoring the controversy, this game was dead in the water. The plagiarism and the reaction to it only guarantees it. I don't know what Sony is going to do or what they should do, whether it be cancel this game, gut the studio, sell Bungie back to the board, etc, but Bungie is an albatross that they need to address harshly.  carlsojo Shinra Employee Member Oct 28, 2017 37,576 San Francisco Is there any new info in this article or is it just a recap   Jawmuncher Crisis Dino Moderator Oct 25, 2017 44,825 Ibis Island IMO, I think Marathon really trying to commit to PVP is doing more harm than good. I think the Hero Idea and such is good, even the features. But they'd be far more at home in a game where you aren't worrying about balancing for two different aspects. The other thread I see about Public Playtests is probably the best outcome to try and get it somewhere people enjoy. However, if you do too many of those, people are going to wonder why they have to pay for it afterwards.  Kalentan Member Oct 25, 2017 50,643 While I do like the designs of the "Heroes", the game 100% should have kept to it's original design of just being Create-a-characters. Moving to the Hero route was a bad idea for this genre.   TheWorthyEdge Member Oct 25, 2017 7,908 Nothing about the current state of Bungie inspires any hope whatsoever. Makes sense why they're doing this Star Wars Destiny expansion. A cash grab if there ever was one. Much needed product on the horizon that SHOULD sell well.   Xeno Member Oct 25, 2017 2,354 Stibbs said: If Paul, THE Bungie guy is out than this really is cooked Should have made Destiny 3 when you had the chance guys Click to expand... Click to shrink... Marathon is in trouble... but Paul Tassi has built a career on bitching about Destiny.   GlorpShitto Member Feb 6, 2024 972 Every article he writes is negative. Nothing new here.   404LinkNotFound Member Oct 27, 2017 10,608 Ha i see that resetera post of ART RAIDERS really spread   Stibbs Member Feb 8, 2023 4,247 The 518 Kalentan said: While I do like the designs of the "Heroes", the game 100% should have kept to it's original design of just being Create-a-characters. Moving to the Hero route was a bad idea for this genre. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Considering Bungie's love of the "faceless/generic helmeted protag"(Marine from PID, Security Officer, Chief, the player Guardian etc) I'm surprised they went for heroes still   OP OP LinguisticGoblin Member Jul 19, 2020 1,293 carlsojo said: Is there any new info in this article or is it just a recap Click to expand... Click to shrink... Recap but he did an article a few days ago about stuff he'd heard is going on internally at Bungie as well, which this one is also a response to I imagine New ‘Marathon’ Info: Bungie Morale, Launch Worries And Changing Plans After a rough playtest and now plagiarism confirmation, Bungie is changing some Marathon plans and internally, things are bad. www.forbes.com   Audiblee Member Mar 14, 2025 1,560 I don't want it to be true, so I'm going to attack the writer. If nothing else, he's proven to have contacts at Bungie.  MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,694 User Warned: Drive-By Posting This guy is soo boring my god just cry about everything   Man Called Aerodynamics Member Oct 29, 2017 8,324 I'm not optimistic about the game's chances either, but I do think he's maybe overestimating the impact of the plagiarism scandal? Outside of the hyper-aware online bubble following the game, does Joe PlayStation even know about it?   Tbm24 Member Oct 25, 2017 22,980 Audiblee said: I don't want it to be true, so I'm going to attack the writer. If nothing else, he's proven to have contacts at Bungie. Click to expand... Click to shrink... What would those contacts have to do with proclaiming a game that has only seen an Alpha test as dead on arrival?   Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,446 Mr Evil 37 said: There's no way it gets cancelled. It's too far into development. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Another game was even further in development. One might say as developed as you can get. Nothing is impossible in this day and age.   Mr Evil 37 Member Mar 7, 2022 27,762 Jimbo Fisher said: At this point how hard would it be for them to just throw in a few traditional multiplayer modes? Some team deathmatch and capture the flag? Feels like that's the only way to save this game's mass market appeal. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I don't know if there's a big enough audience for traditional multiplayer modes like that, and the audience there is will probably stick with CoD, Halo etc.   Mr Evil 37 Member Mar 7, 2022 27,762 Yerffej said: Another game was even further in development. One might say as developed as you can get. Nothing is impossible in this day and age. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Concord did come out though lol I'm saying Marathon will come out. What happens after, who knows.   Precious Tritium Member Oct 25, 2017 10,253 Yerffej said: Another game was even further in development. One might say as developed as you can get. Nothing is impossible in this day and age. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Concord was canned because they promised weekly cutscenes and would have been sued had they stopped support for it without refunding and turning it off. Had they not done that the game would still be playable, Destruction Allstars is still online and I imagine has at most a handful of players.  Yerffej Prophet of Regret Member Oct 25, 2017 29,446 Mr Evil 37 said: Concord did come out though lol I'm saying Marathon will come out. What happens after, who knows. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I couldn't be less interested in the product, but I am riveted in what happens with this one. Very curious how this goes.   J_Viper Member Oct 25, 2017 27,139 Marathon |OT| But no, it's over. I can't dispute this anymore   LewieP Member Oct 26, 2017 19,819 Kinda wild that Bungie used to be great at making single player FPS campaigns, but they haven't put one out in 15 years. I'd be very interested in them making another one of those. Even if it was attached to a multiplayer game.   BassForever One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 31,629 CT Mr Evil 37 said: There's no way it gets cancelled. It's too far into development. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Concord was released for 2 weeks before being pulled and canceled just last year.   IMCaprica Member Aug 1, 2019 11,014 Paul Tassi never met a moment he couldn't be dramatic about. I particularly like the way he puts watching people play Marathon and actually playing Marathon on the same level, and then never directly identifies which camp he falls into. Also, love a writer who can't be bothered to proofread until they feel like it after they've published an article. Watching this guy report on the real reason this game is a disaster now doomed to fail and then doubling back to "and also all the other stuff I previously theorized must also be the case" is cringey. fudgybrownie said: Another one of those paul tassi articles Click to expand... Click to shrink... I love his singular insight that viewership and wildly inaccurate dislike numbers on a video platform determine everything about a game's success. Precious Tritium said: Concord was canned because they promised weekly cutscenes and would have been sued had they stopped support for it without refunding and turning it off. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Source?   MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,694 LewieP said: Kinda wild that Bungie used to be great at making single player FPS campaigns, but they haven't put one out in 15 years. I'd be very interested in them making another one of those. Even if it was attached to a multiplayer game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They want make these games   ElFly Member Oct 27, 2017 3,752 I think Sony will force it through, it will fail, and then Sony spins what will be left of the Marathon devs to make a CoD clone, no frills, just shooting people good in a realistic env.   LewieP Member Oct 26, 2017 19,819 MarcosBrXD said: They want make these games Click to expand... Click to shrink... I don't doubt it. But they don't really appeal to me.  Stibbs Member Feb 8, 2023 4,247 The 518 Yerffej said: Another game was even further in development. One might say as developed as you can get. Nothing is impossible in this day and age. Click to expand... Click to shrink... No one realizes you mean Hyenas? You mean Hyenas right?   Kill3r7 Member Oct 25, 2017 29,049 I don't get the point of doom and gloom. Bungie aren't magically going to rethink the game in the next 5 months. Let's see how it does when it comes out. Bungie has a long history of pulling the rabbit out of the hat. LewieP said: Kinda wild that Bungie used to be great at making single player FPS campaigns, but they haven't put one out in 15 years. I'd be very interested in them making another one of those. Even if it was attached to a multiplayer game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They just delivered a brilliant campaign last year with TFS.  Ascenion Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 13,106 Mecklenburg-Strelitz Mr Evil 37 said: There's no way it gets cancelled. It's too far into development. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I can't see how you think this after Concord. Mind you, I agree with you. But if this fails they will almost assuredly be forced to make Destiny 3.   Mr Evil 37 Member Mar 7, 2022 27,762 BassForever said: Concord was released for 2 weeks before being pulled and canceled just last year. Click to expand... Click to shrink... As I said in a later post, I was talking about it being cancelled before release.   NekoNeko Coward Oct 26, 2017 20,248 it's Bungover