Not too long ago, Bungie was the king of first-person shooters, thanks to their stunning work with the Halo franchise. Afterward, they found further success with the Destiny series, but unfortunately, they’ve fallen off as of late. Due to mishandling of Destiny 2, which many consider to be all but dead, Bungie has burned its reputation quite a bit. Flash forward to 2026, with Bungie now owned by Sony, they’re taking a big gamble with a live-service, first-person extraction shooter called Marathon, similar to Arc Raiders but with a larger focus on player-versus-player combat. In many ways, they’re staking their future on this title, with a ballooned budget of over $300 million. Fortunately, while some have bounced off the game quickly, those who enjoy Marathon are finding a lot to love.
Tau Ceti IV Invites You
Marathon is a franchise that dates back to 1994, marking one of the earliest successes for Bungie, surviving on the Apple Macintosh Computer exclusively. However, after two sequels, Bungie mostly abandoned Marathon, until now. Though the lore of Marathon is exceptionally complex, it mostly centers around one planet, Tau Ceti IV, and a ship of 30,000+ colonists who set out from Mars to settle it. Roughly 100 years after arriving planet-side, both the colony and the spaceship, the UESC Marathon, went radio silent. Flash forward to the present, where you play as a “runner”: a digitized consciousness that is uploaded to a bio-cybernetic body and sent to Tau Ceti IV to investigate, gather loot, and leave.
That’s pretty much all of the context you’ll have at the start of Marathon, but you can uncover more of the story by completing quests for six different factions, discovering specific items around Tau Ceti IV, and more. For lore nuts, Marathon presents an addictive loop of discovery, where every few sessions, you’ll come away with more context and narrative. Thoughtful observation of your surroundings, paying attention during dialogue moments, and reading up on codex entries all inform the mystery of Tau Ceti IV and the UESC Marathon. Of course, you’re free to ignore this content and get right to the shooting, but the narrative is so well-written and intriguing that it’s hard to pass up. To be blunt, Marathon offers some of the best science fiction in modern gaming, and it’s a story that gets more and more engaging the longer you play.
Escape Will Make Me God
An intriguing story is good to have, but video games are not books, and good gameplay is tantamount to quality in a first-person shooter. Here, Bungie shows their incredible skill at making gunplay feel invigorating and super smooth. Of all the criticisms of Marathon, few are lobbed at the actual shooting mechanics, but more often the art style and high difficulty. On the surface, Marathon is very similar to other extraction shooters: you pick a loadout of gear, enter a map with a running time limit, and must collect as much loot as possible before making your way to an exfil point and escaping alive. AI enemies and other players will try to stop you at every turn, and in Marathon, very few players are friendly. More often than not, a gunfight erupts as soon as two squads spot each other, but this is where the nuances of Marathon really shine.
What sets Marathon apart, more than its world-building, art direction, or brutal difficulty, is the complexities of PvP fights and the options at your disposal. Instead of controlling an average schmuck, you choose from six different “shells” (essentially character classes), each providing unique abilities that make a huge difference in combat. For example, the Assassin shell can go invisible, the Recon shell can send out a UAV-style ping, the Triage shell can heal and revive teammates, and more. When played solo, it becomes a high-intensity, nerve-racking experience, but together with friends, you can make meaningful team compositions and roll over opponents with smart tactics.
Overall, Marathon will not be for everyone. It’s incredibly tough, whether you’re fighting AI enemies or human players, and it can be frustrating to lose all your loot in the blink of an eye. However, these heightened stakes exemplify the feeling of danger on Tau Ceti IV, making the disturbing mystery at its core feel all the more intense. Though Bungie has done a great job responding to player concerns with various updates and tweaks, the bones of the experience will likely never change. So, if you’ve played Arc Raiders and wished it were a bit more aggressive, or played Escape from Tarkov and wished there was better storytelling and atmosphere, Marathon is worth a shot. Just be warned: you will die frequently. But, with each successful exfil, you’ll feel your power rising and the story will continue to unfold, often beckoning “just one more run”, keeping you up to the wee hours of the night.
