Marathon – Extracting the fun?

I love Bungie, but not extraction shooters.

I have played Destiny for 10years, and Halo is still one of my all-time favourite franchises ever made. So, when the new Bungie game, a PvPvE Extraction Shooter based on their old I.P, Marathon, was being Alpha tested, I gobbled up every video and opinion piece I could get my eye-balls on.

My hot-take, just watching streams and gameplay sessions was….well, not good. And then the drama over art assets being stolen and rumours of failing moral at Bungo…my hopes are not high for this next big thing.

That ain’t it, Chief.

Extraction shooters are not my jam. I have tried a couple, in particular “CoD: DMZ” and “The Hunt: Showdown” and man, I just don’t like the “lose everything” consequence of a bad run. These are essentially Rogue-likes, and we all know how us at KC feel about them!

But I had hoped that the “Bungie Magic” would come to save the day. I hoped there was going to be an amazing PvE twist on the genre that would bring joy to the Destiny players looking for the next “Bungie Adventure”.

And……No.

Now I admit, I have not played the Marathon. It has been in development for 4-5years and it comes out in 4 months, unless these rumours of cancelled marketing plans and a possible delay being on the cards.

But with the “offical” release timing set by Bungie, I see that no major changes can occur this late in the game. Plus, when content creators I respect like SkillUP and Paul Tassi say….”There is no Magic here”. I can’t help but listen.

Marathon looks interesting, even if some of its art is stolen. (Bungie can’t catch help own goals it would appear). The sci-fi aesthetic, the tuned bungie shooting, and the canon of Marathon. It should be a golden combo! But the PvPvE extraction shooter mode and the obvious trend chase Bungie are in…instead of trend setting, leaves me cold.

Another player on the field!

Strangely though. I HAVE played the Beta for ARC Raiders, which is a similar PvPvE game in the Extraction shooter genre, but in third person. And it looks and feels more promising, or at least more “polished”.

Embark Studios, developers of The Finals (Which is a FPS Team Arena Shooter I looooove). Seems to have leaned more into the PvE side of a PvEvP type game, and it hits slightly nicer for me.

That all said, I got smashed in EVERY SINGLE PvP encounter I had in Arc Raiders, and at the end of the test weekend it was clear.  If either game has no exclusive PvE mode, I would not be buying them at launch.

Long story short, we are about to get some high quality PvPvE Extraction shooters in the market, and based on what I have seen and played myself, I’m not gonna like any of them.