A Franchise Worth Reviving, but Perhaps Just Not Like This

As of this writing, the future is looking pretty grim for this revival of Bungie’s original, pre-Halo FPS IP. I think it’s no secret that the title has failed to build and maintain a consistent player base in the 4 months+ since it launched, with its concurrent active user counts only continuing to hit further embarrassing new lows as time goes on. Well, after having finally tried this out for myself during the free period that ran from 6/2/26-6/11/26, I feel like I can say that I understand why. It’s not that Marathon is an outright bad game or anything. In fact, in many ways it’s an objectively good one. It’s just that the majority of its design decisions give it an inherently limited appeal.

Extraction shooters have seemingly replaced battle royales as the present big multiplayer trend everyone is trying to cash in on right now. I’ve personally found it pretty baffling that a not insignificant number of studios have been willing to place their live-service hopes on what is by its very nature a far more niche subgenre due to its higher stakes, brutal consequences for failure, and steeper learning curve. You can almost smell the desperation as they try their hands at anything that appears as though it might have a chance at sticking these days.

Rather than attempting to make their effort more accessible to a wider audience—which arguably would have been the smarter route to take—the Destiny devs instead chose to create something that ranks among the most hardcore mainstream options currently on the market. This is a rather unforgiving experience where death comes fast and even the NPC robots roaming around can wipe your entire team in seconds if caught slipping. Also, ARC Raiders this ain’t, so don’t ever expect to encounter any warmth or friendliness from your living opponents either. The community is pretty dang bloodthirsty and practically itching to get the drop on someone in PvP.

Simply put, this isn’t the type of multiplayer you can fire up for a bit of quick, casual fun here and there. You need to be completely locked in, rolling with a good squad, rocking the right gear/upgrades for your class, and faithfully grinding the often vague faction missions in order to make meaningful progress or walk away with decent loot. All of which does lead to successful runs being incredibly rewarding and capable of delivering a sense of satisfaction that those who appreciate a hearty challenge will enjoy pursuing, but simultaneously causes the overall package to be too demanding to hook anyone uninterested in becoming a total “sweat.” That comes off as very odd when you consider Sony is wanting and, let’s be honest, to a degree NEEDING this to basically pull Fortnite numbers. The sole concession to accessibility is that everybody’s stats and inventories are completely reset at the start of each season to potentially making onboarding a pinch easier for newcomers.

Such a decidedly uncompromising approach to the gameplay has sadly condemned Marathon to the status of a fringe cult classic at best, despite how meticulously crafted the shooting and various mechanics are. That’s a shame because the sci-fi world housed within it is absolutely phenomenal. Bungie has brought their heady space-set universe and its compelling lore back to life with a striking graphic, minimalist industrial aesthetic that utilizes bold colors and thus far stands as my favorite art direction of 2026. It’s also a much more haunting property than I was expecting, with prominent themes of existential horror and hints at almost Lovecraftian cosmic mysteries running in the background. Nearly every stylistic flourish right down to the freaking loading screens establishes a uniquely unsettling atmosphere early on, whereas the tension of the matches themselves is effectively bolstered by the outstanding sound design that will regularly leave you stopping dead in your tracks at any unfamiliar sound you hear in the environment. Those aspects truly make me wish the action had been able to pull me in.

Regardless of whether I’ll be returning or not, it’s easy to see why there are people who are very passionate about this offering. Were it F2P I would be encouraging others to at least give it a chance, but thanks to its $39.99 price tag I can’t comfortably bring myself to recommend this to anybody given that it’ll ultimately only click with a select few. That entry fee is a particularly tragic case of unintentional self-sabotage. One thing is certain, however: we deserve more of this franchise in a different form. I pray it isn’t placed back on a shelf to collect dust again should this installment end up getting shut down, as a follow-up with a single-player campaign, slower TTK, and traditional storytelling method has the potential to be amazing.

6/10