In the months leading up to release, the tone of discussions shifted. The success of ARC Raiders, talks about splitting matchmaking into PvP and PvE lobbies, and Bungie's statements about focusing on the PvE audience led some players to see Marathon as a compromise between Escape from Tarkov and softer extraction shooters.
In practice, Marathon needs to be considered separately from these expectations. It's not a friendly version of the genre, nor is it a simplified variation. In this review, we'll break down how the game is structured in terms of visuals, raid structure, progression, and modes, and see who it's for and who it's not.
Visuals and Graphics
The visual style of Marathon is built on sharp contrasts and an acid palette. The main accent is a lime shade, even featured in the logo. In the first closed tests, this made the environment look too flat. By release, the image was refined: scuffs, dirt, signs of use, and other details appeared on the surfaces, better conveying the feeling of an abandoned colony.
The architecture of the colony looks utilitarian. Many buildings are simple geometric volumes with a minimum of expressive elements. This approach can be considered part of the artistic logic of the world, but it also makes the exteriors too simple in places. Because of this, some of the audience compared the game to Roblox.
The interiors turned out more convincing. Laboratories, technical rooms, residential blocks, and destroyed buildings do not look like the same type of stubs. Even with the same palette, the rooms have function and character. Because of this, the internal spaces read better than the overall silhouette of the buildings from the outside.
The vegetation is the weakest. Grass, trees, and other flora sometimes look artificial even on the maximum graphics settings. Against this background, it is noticeable that the natural environment received less attention than the architecture and interior details. Although it is this contrast that should show the danger of this planet.
The only reason this picture doesn't seem so disgusting is the lighting and weather. Fogs, rains, thunderstorms, and rare periods of clear weather constantly change the perception of locations. In cloudy conditions, the map looks more complete: the light hides some of the simple forms, and the long distances are cut off by fog and precipitation.
The same applies to local light sources. Darkened corners, red and ultraviolet zones complicate firefights and help players hide. Sometimes lighting masks the enemy as well as a separate ability. As a result, the visuals of Marathon cannot be called perfect, but it has character, and the strengths skillfully cover the weaknesses.
Narrative Thirty Years Later
For a significant part of the modern audience, Marathon is a new game. Meanwhile, this is a return of the old Bungie series, released back in the mid-1990s on Macintosh. The original trilogy told about the Marathon spacecraft, the flight to Tau Ceti, and the conflict with AI and alien races.
The new game in the series continues this story, but with one nuance. In addition to the fact that Bungie left the franchise without a sequel for almost 30 years, the events of the new game take place about 100 years after the original trilogy. Because of this, many players simply do not understand the context! The colony on Tau Ceti IV has long been built, but there are no more people there: the population died due to an unknown virus and anomaly, and the territory is controlled by the forces of the Unified Earth Space Council (UESC) and their regular troops in the form of faceless robots.
But not only government forces are fighting for control of the planet. Corporations and other organizations with their own tasks are involved in the story. It is through them that the main plot of Marathon is presented.
The player does not play as a specific hero, but as a mercenary going on raids through combat shells. This is an important detail of the setting and gameplay. The shell can be lost, but the mercenary himself remains alive and will be able to go on the next raid in a new body.
The presentation of the story is divided into two parts. The first is the tasks of the factions. They move the player through the plot and give the necessary context. The second is the Codex with records of the life of the colony, research, and everyday life. Fans of the old Marathon will most likely like this approach: the original games also revealed the lore through notes in the terminals. And the audience entering the extraction shooter for progression and raids simply does not need all this.
In games of this genre, many players strive to level up as quickly as possible and reach a stable earning cycle. In this pace, dialogues and secondary context are often skipped. Therefore, Marathon has lore, but it works primarily for those who are willing to play at a calm pace, read, and piece together the picture.
Looks Like Everyone — Looks Like No One
Even before the release of Marathon, gamers tried to describe the gameplay through other games. Roblox was mentioned in the visuals, and Escape from Tarkov, Apex Legends, Valorant, and Delta Force in the mechanics. The comparisons are understandable, but Marathon is ultimately not like any of the above options.
The pace of the game here is high. Firefights are built not only on holding position, but also on movement, while weapons do not kill with one bullet. As a result, the battle is more dynamic, but Marathon is still a brutal game.
Even during the playtest, tier lists with the most effective guns were formed in Marathon — in most lists, shotguns were in first place. A double-barreled shotgun can quickly remove even a well-protected enemy, while other weapons require more skill to use. And even expensive weapons with legendary attachments do not feel as profitable an investment — although there is always the option of not letting a person with a double-barreled shotgun get close to you, which also requires skills.
The rating mode also looks like a borrowing with noticeable simplifications. In other extractions, the rank usually consists of a set of actions, and in Marathon everything comes down to collecting values up to a given quota. For this, the mode has special items that are valuable primarily as a progress counter, and not as real loot. In practice, this leads to a passive game: teams quickly take what they need and then prefer to sit in ambush until exit points appear.
The rating problem is exacerbated by the team orientation of the game. Formally, you can enter it alone, but the match is still built around clashes with squads. Solo players also have a separate restriction: they cannot collect values above the norm, while a group does not feel such a ceiling. Because of this, the ranked mode does not look like a test of skill, but as a format designed only for team play.
Hired Creditors
The main feature of Marathon is the character system. Because of it, the game was mistakenly classified as a "hero shooter." There are six classes in the game with their own unique skills, and the closest analogy would be Rainbow Six: Siege. Abilities here do not replace shooting, but are layered on top of it and have a significant impact on the course of the skirmish.
A rare mechanic for the genre is resurrection. After losing health, a character doesn't always die immediately, but falls into a knockdown and can only crawl. An ally can pick them up, and an opponent can finish them off. But even after being finished off, the raid doesn't end for that particular team member: a box with items remains at the site of the corpse, interacting with which can return the comrade to battle.
This decision has an important consequence. A player can be picked up even after their equipment has been taken by someone else. Formally, they are back in the raid, but in fact, they are forced to continue the fight "naked" — the team will have to go for loot again or share their own belongings with the resurrected one.
The system is complemented by two details. Firstly, the game doesn't have a strict limit on the number of falls and deaths per raid, which is especially important for group raids. Secondly, there is an item for self-return to battle. For extraction shooters, this is still atypical, and in such details, Marathon differs from more conservative representatives of the genre.
A Different Approach to Progression
In most extraction shooters, development relies on three pillars: shelter, traders, and character skills. The shelter allows you to craft items, traders expand the assortment, and the hero's characteristics gradually give useful bonuses.
In Marathon, this system has been reworked. There is no shelter or crafting here. Instead, all progression is tied to relationships with six organizations. They sell equipment, open access to new modules, and influence the parameters of the shell.
This is an important difference from games where the main goal is to accumulate more expensive weapons and armor. In Marathon, the outcome of a skirmish depends more on the characteristics of the shell itself, implants, and available abilities, rather than the color of the gun. Shields provide additional health, but don't turn the hero into a tank. And the quality of the weapon depends on the installed modules. Therefore, even with a basic weapon, you can win a fight, and with a fully assembled legendary gun, you can die from a bum with a knife.
Each organization is responsible for its own set of advantages. CyberAcme improves endurance, reduces fall damage, and expands storage. NuCaloric sells medicine and enhances regeneration. MIDA focuses on explosives and agility. Arachne enhances melee combat, finishing moves, and the speed of picking up allies. Traxus provides a large selection of weapons and attachments. And Sekiguchi sells amplifiers for characters and modifiers for ability cooldowns.
As a result, the difference between a newbie and a veteran is determined not so much by the rarity of equipment, but by the set of personal skills. What matters is what kind of runner the player has, how deftly they move, how often they can use abilities, and how much benefit they get from implants and cores.
Headache Without Going on a Raid
The main weakness of Marathon outside of raids is the preparation stage. Already in the main menu, the game gives too many disparate screens. Storage and character characteristics are separated into different tabs, so evaluating the build has to be done through constant switching between menus.
A similar problem exists with the store. It is divided into six separate markets according to the number of factions, but the transition to them is arranged unobviously. And in order to switch from the store to the faction interaction window, a newbie is forced to exit one menu to another, and then search for the desired section through the faction tabs. Only after dozens of hours do people manage to find a button hidden somewhere in the lower left corner of the screen, directing from the faction skill tree to the store and vice versa.
For a newbie, the very structure of equipment creates additional difficulty. In addition to weapons, shields, ammunition, and medicine, each runner has two slots for cores — these are runner modifiers that affect their skills and play style. Some cores are universal, others only work with a specific shell. For example, the Vandal has an option that allows you to mark targets with a repelling gun, and the Assassin has a core that speeds up movement in invisibility. The higher the rarity of the core, the stronger the effect.
Implants are no less important. They are divided by installation type: head, chest, and legs. They enhance the passive characteristics of the runner, and there is one serious problem with them: the game doesn't explain their side effects. Implants raise some parameters and cut others, but these penalties are not always obvious from the description. Therefore, you have to figure it out by constantly shuffling implants, returning to the character screen, and back to the storage.
Added to this is a random bonus effect. Two identical implants may differ in their secondary ability. For example, one applies toxin on knife strike, another makes the character invisible at the moment of self-revival or reviving a partner. Because of this, the player sometimes chooses an amplifier not for the main characteristics, but for a random bonus — and this can also become part of creating a build.
The situation is the same with consumables. In addition to first-aid kits, shield batteries, and self-revival injectors, there is specialized medicine. Mechanic kits remove toxins, paralysis, and frostbite — effects often encountered in raids. OS debugging packages are needed against hacking and the influence of EMP on the player's shell. Cardiac pacemakers enhance agility and heat capacity, allowing you to run faster and longer. And Panacea fully restores health and shields and removes negative effects.
There are also more specialized items. A signal jammer hides the runner from radars, enemy mines, and turrets, and also distorts their silhouette for other players. Antivirus is only needed for events with infected zones and is truly important mainly on the "Creepy Swamp" and "Cryo Archive" maps, where these zones are located.
All this creates no less of a headache than preparing for a raid in Escape from Tarkov. But this problem can be eliminated by playing with ready-made faction sets. They cannot be supplemented with items from your own storage, but they allow you to quickly enter a match. The problem is that expensive sets often don't justify the price, and free ones, on the contrary, turn out to be too useful. With them, you can complete contracts and, with good execution, defeat even better-equipped opponents, collecting someone else's loot.
Each Map is a Unique Adventure
The basic cycle in Marathon is familiar from other extraction shooters: choose a map, take a contract, enter a raid, collect resources, and get out alive. The difference is in the details.
Currently, four maps are presented: "Perimeter", "Creepy Swamp", "Outpost", and "Cryo Archive".
- "Perimeter" is the starting location. There is not so much valuable loot here, but it is convenient to collect basic materials for early leveling.
- "Creepy Swamp" is richer in resources, and most of the faction story missions are tied to this location.
- "Outpost" is a compact, vertical, and the most conflict-prone map, where clashes between players occur most often.
- "Cryo Archive" is the largest map of all presented, where not so much clashes between players are important, but team interaction, solving puzzles, platforming, and fighting NPCs. Here is the most valuable loot and the highest risks.
The maps also have their own events. On "Perimeter," a task to intercept a valuable OKSZ cargo may launch — this is a simple and straightforward event, offering everyone the opportunity to compete for good loot.
Anomalous specimens regularly appear on "Creepy Swamp." The perimeter cordon also triggers there: a platform appears over part of the map, isolating the zone and damaging anyone who is there without protection. An antivirus is needed to pass. Inside, you need to turn off the generator, take the valuable loot, and wait for the platform to move to another part of the map. There can be three such isolations in one raid, and with each time, the reward will become more valuable — and therefore, it is more dangerous to leave the zone with it.
On "Outpost," the main point of attraction is the central tower. Key cards are needed to access it and the rooms associated with it. They open the gates, activate the exits, and summon cargo ships. Because of this, the map is divided into two types of players: some are preparing to storm the tower, others are trying to intercept the winners after the main events.
Each map also has local bosses — Sentinels. These are the same robots, but with more aggressive AI, as well as increased health and damage stats. The reward for victory is high, but the battle itself almost always attracts other players who are not after the boss, but after those who have already engaged with it.
"Cryo Archive" is the toughest map available. This is one of the sectors of the Marathon colony ship, where the core of the local AI is located. Structurally, the map resembles Outpost: in the center is the main challenge, where you need to fight an alien boss — the Compiler. But the entry conditions here are noticeably stricter. You can only enter with a squad, solo search is not available, nor is the "RUK" shell (the local analogue of the Wild from Tarkov). In addition, each player must have equipment worth at least 5000 credits.
In addition to the usual loot, in "Cryo Archive" you need to increase the level of access. To do this, collect tokens from robots and hack consoles. The higher the level of access, the more compartments of the ship open up. To advance to the main mystery of Marathon, you need the fifth level and a sample to pass the DNA scanner.
A separate mystery is the closed rooms with key cards. Opening them with one card is not enough: you need to install batteries and a capsule with refrigerant in the generator at the door, and also find the credentials of the required employee. That is, even access to a niche reward is turned into a multi-step task that you will have to solve throughout the raid.
It is important to clarify that maps cannot be evaluated separately from the squad composition. The feeling of the same location changes depending on what composition of shells the group goes on a raid in.
"Three is a magic number"
One of the key features of Marathon is that its foundation is clearly built for a squad of three people. Formally, the game has a solo mode, but most of the systems work as if the trio is still the standard composition.
This is already visible in the very logic of the raid. Marathon builds tension not around long and careful looting, but around constant noise, lack of time, and the risk of third-party intervention. When one player watches the flank, the second leads the battle, and the third insures — such a system seems logical. Alone, the same space control is almost unattainable.
The heroic structure only enhances this effect. Each class contributes to the squad. At the same time, the game does not prohibit taking the same characters. Because of this, the group can be built both around the classic distribution of roles and around one specific tactic.
Three Assassins can play through invisibility and smoke, and three Vandals — through mobility and aggression. In both cases, Marathon supports not only a variety of builds, but also narrow specialization. This is another signal that the balance initially looked towards team play.
Therefore, the recommendation to enter Marathon with friends is not just advice in the spirit of "it's more fun this way." In a group, the game really unfolds better: its pace, resurrection system, heroic abilities, and progression look as if they were configured specifically for a trio.
There is also a downside. In many extraction shooters, team play gives rise to the practice of "dressing up" partners and quickly leads to a gray market for things for real money. In Marathon, the developers tried to cut off this path. Resources cannot be freely transferred to the raid, and weapons, armor, and consumables transferred to a partner are marked as borrowed. After a successful evacuation, such items are returned to the owner.
At the same time, the gray market itself has not declined at all, which makes the whole idea with the ban on the transfer of equipment a failure — service providers take players through complex raids, such as "Cryo Archive," for money, allowing them to collect top loot on their own.
Because of this, team play in Marathon is strong in battle, but limited in economics. Some players are happy with this, others are pushed into solo. And there the game already feels different.
Marathon = Escape from Tarkov
The single-player mode quickly shows that it is secondary for Marathon. The first signal is the match search time. In a group, the raid is usually found quickly, and in solo, the waiting time is noticeably longer. This is a trifle, but it immediately sets the right impression: the single-player mode is not perceived as the main one.
The main difference is revealed already in the raid itself. In team play, abilities expand tactics, and in solo, they turn into a question of survival. The player can no longer cover the weak sides of the hero with allies, so the choice of shell here is much tougher.
Triage is suitable for careful play — a medic who can heal himself and restore shields with the help of drones. But more often than not, solo players gravitate towards the Assassin: invisibility and smoke work best in a mode where you don’t need to win a long exchange, but to be the first to impose a battle or just as quickly leave it.
On the opposite pole is the Destroyer. In single sorties, he unfolds much less often and only with the right build. His wall-shield rarely gives a decisive advantage, and dashes and tactical sprint work worse where information, position, and the right of the first shot play the main role, and not maneuvering across the battlefield. And yet — he is not useless.
That is why in a trio Marathon resembles a heroic action game with constant exchanges, and in solo — much closer to Escape from Tarkov. Sound, waiting, route control, and the ability to strike first come to the fore. Most singles quickly switch to the most accurate style: less noise, fewer unnecessary skirmishes, and more ambushes.
The game has tools for such tactics. Mines are visible due to the sensor illumination, so they work better in doorways and narrow passages. Non-standard use of mines has also found a place in the game: there is also a trap disguised as a box of a dead player. If another person tries to open it, the trap will explode and knock out the target.
Direct one-on-one shootouts also happen, and in them, mechanical shooting, shields, and accuracy matter more than in team fights. But even in such situations, solo remains a mode where the price of error is too high. Therefore, most players try not to bring things to an honest duel.
A separate problem is bots. For a solo player, any encounter with robots is dangerous for several reasons. It gives away the position, forces you to spend resources, and opens a window for player invasions. Even after a complete sweep of the zone does not become safe, because reinforcements arrive to replace the destroyed enemies. As a result, the solo mode itself pushes the player towards stealthy passage.
Rook and Blood
Separately, it is necessary to highlight Rook - this is a direct analogue of the Wild from Escape from Tarkov. He connects not to a new match, but to an already ongoing raid with ready-made equipment, where the most valuable places have often already been looted.
On paper, the idea is useful: it's a way to go on a raid without a full set, collect the remnants of loot and not risk the main equipment. But Rook has too many limitations.
He does not have a full set of combat skills: his arsenal only includes camouflage from robots and emergency regeneration. This is enough for stealthy movement, but not suitable for a serious skirmish. You will have to rely more on tactical equipment, such as mines and grenades, lure players to bots and resort to already started skirmishes.
The problem is exacerbated by two fundamental limitations: Rook cannot complete quests, and he is only connected to group raids. That is, even in the role of a conditionally free runner, he regularly encounters with a trio, if he is not careful.
The mode still has potential. By leveling up relationships with factions for Rook, you can unlock implants, cores, and even a shotgun, which makes it easier to set up ambushes. But even with these improvements, it remains more of an additional mode and a last chance than a full-fledged tool for solo play.
Therefore, for a solo player, it is often more profitable to go on a raid as a regular hero with a free set. This option gives more control, allows you to do quests and does not drive the player into a deliberately losing format.
Verdict
Marathon is not an extraction shooter for a wide audience. The game remains tough, demanding, and its entry threshold is higher than that of many competitors in the genre. You need to master it for a long time, studying the roles and characteristics of shells, as well as studying guides on character builds.
The game has strengths. Marathon plays quickly, works well in trios, and offers dense lore for those who are willing to delve into it. The maps are noticeably different from each other, and the weather and lighting help the visuals keep their face even where the geometry of the locations themselves looks too simple.
The main problem is different. The game works poorly in a single format and, so far, does not respect duo squads - however, the paired mode is being tested right now. In addition, before each raid, the player has to wade through an overloaded interface until he studies it thoroughly.
Now Marathon has the main thing: its own rhythm and a recognizable face. But this game is not for everyone. Those who are waiting for a soft PvE extraction like ARC Raiders have nothing to do here. Those who are ready to accept complex matchmaking, high risk and strong dependence on team play, on the contrary, should take a look at it already now.