Thoughts on Marathon? Sorry, I know I'm late...
marathonthegame.com
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/12993314
I'm way late to the party, but just found out about Marathon, by Bungie.
I don't really play FPS games, but the trailer looks awesome!
What do you guys think?
Also, do you reckon it'll be F2P? I saw a video on YT that suggested that.
Much love,
gon
They destroyed Destiny with live service horseshit, so I'm guessing it's more of the same.
Wasn't Destiny always a live service game?
It was always "always online" (though you could play matchmaking only activities solo pretty easily). But it didn't always have the traits of live service that destroyed it.
Destiny 1 had relatively little content, with excellent enemy design and level design, done in a way that the content had a lot of replayability purely for the sake of the mechanics. Playing a strike again (provided you weren't too overleveled and mowing through everything) never really felt the same because you and your party didn't do the exact same thing. This was supplemented with nightfalls (which were a live service like timed event, but didn't have to be) and other strikes with modifiers to expand the replayability more. Every once in a while there was an expansion, with a well designed new map, and you could still play all the old stuff. There were a handful of new type of enemies, playing on the old ones, that were still thought out and well structured.
Destiny 2 obviously threw out the D1 content. Fine. It's a new game. But, because of "not enough content" complaints, they constantly threw old stuff in the trash for rushed, badly designed new ones. They stopped focusing on well balanced strikes and focused on new game modes designed to serve the "season" model by forcing you to use specific weapon types to even do damage on certain enemies. They mostly threw the well balanced original enemies in the trash for poorly thought out new ones for the sake of "this is new" at a pace that made no sense.
New content being different is fine. Taking away old better content to force people into half assed content churn is not, and that's what the live service emphasis did. I'm not even sure the significantly worse content was an "innocent" consequence of the bad pace, either. The poor design significantly cut down replayability, meaning more players are clamoring more for new opportunities to throw money at new bad content.
Destiny 1 was planned to be live service, "updated until the end of time". Seems like the design and technology did not work for that, hence Destiny 2
oh :C ok...
They make a good shooter mechanically.
But all the great enemy design and map design that Destiny started with took a back seat to constant content churn with all the actually well designed stuff taken away and made impossible to play again.
That doesn't sound good indeed...
Maybe this time it'll be better? IDK about Destiny 2 for example. I've heard good things though (?)
As long as it's good mechanically, I think I'll want to give it a try at least.
Someone else said it better on the Fairgame$ trailer but this also has "Thanks to all our players but we're unfortunately ending support" 1 year later vibes to it.
Bungie is the sort of the company that won't actually kill a project 1 year into it despite its flaws, it has money to keep it afloat, but it just feels like a generic extractions shooter as a live service in the sea of extraction shooters as a live service. If any other studio put out this trailer and I would immediately assume it's just going to be cancelled before launch.
Huh, well that's disheartening... Is there any extraction shooter you recommend?
I mean, if there's so many, I'd think they have something that distinguishes them besides just aesthetics, right? I hope Marathon can bring some fresh air to the genre. IDK
Hunt Showdown and Marauders are both pretty good. I feel like right now Anthony they can bring to the saturated market won't matter much. Even though those two are great games, I don't play them because extraction shooters are more on their way out. I don't get the spark of joy in them that I did.
They're not making a game like the old Marathon games, so I don't know why they felt the need to use the name. It's an extraction shooter. A live service in a sea of them. I thought they might be making a more traditional FPS to complement their live service FPS, but nope. More of that garbage. They're not making FPS games for me these days.
I'm much more interested in the original games, which are now available for free as Aleph One.
https://alephone.lhowon.org/
Ad copy first draft: "Marathon by Bungie, makes of the, uh, original Marathon?"
Yup.
One of the best FPS games I ever played. Marathon I and II. This was on a Mac in the early nineties, I guess.
You probably already know this, but there's a free open source version of all three original games, plus others:
https://alephone.lhowon.org/
Thanks, I hate it
Dang. I was optimistic that they may be trying out a linear single player shooter, but I guess that was naive of me. The live service model is making so much money for them, so theyβre doing the most sensible thing. This is just them recycling some old IP, not an actual revival.