Marathon makes no concessions to newcomers and offers no simplified PvE matchmaking. This is a brutal shooter where victory is often forged during the build customization screen, and solo players must embrace a challenging set of survival rules. We’ll delve into the raid structure, classes, and progression in what stands as one of the season’s most controversial releases.
In the months leading up to its release, the discourse surrounding Marathon shifted significantly. Following the success of ARC Raiders, discussions about splitting matchmaking into distinct PvP and PvE lobbies, and Bungie’s own statements hinting at a focus on PvE players, a segment of the community began to view Marathon as a compromise between the hardcore Escape from Tarkov and more accessible extraction shooters.
In practice, however, Marathon should be evaluated independently of these preconceptions. It is neither a softened nor a simplified version of the genre. This review will thoroughly examine the game’s visual style, raid structure, progression system, and various game modes to determine who this shooter is designed for, and who might find it unappealing.
Visuals and Graphics
Marathon’s visual style is characterized by sharp contrasts and an acidic color palette, with a strong emphasis on a lime green hue, even featured in the logo. During early closed tests, this often made environments appear overly flat. By release, developers had refined the graphics: surfaces gained detail such as scuffs, dirt, and signs of wear, which significantly better convey the atmosphere of an abandoned colony.
The colony’s architecture appears utilitarian. Many buildings are simple geometric volumes with minimal expressive elements. While this approach can be considered part of the world’s artistic logic, it also makes exteriors occasionally too simplistic. This simplicity led some in the audience to compare the game to Roblox.
Interiors, however, are more convincing. Laboratories, technical rooms, living quarters, and ruined sections do not feel like generic placeholders. Even with the consistent palette, each space possesses a function and character. Consequently, internal areas are more readable and engaging than the general silhouette of external structures.
The weakest aspect of the visuals is the vegetation. Grass, trees, and other flora sometimes look artificial, even at maximum graphic settings. Against this backdrop, it’s evident that the natural environment received less attention than the architecture and interior details, despite this contrast being intended to highlight the planet’s inherent danger.
The only reason this visual presentation doesn’t feel utterly unappealing is the lighting and weather effects. Fogs, rain, thunderstorms, and rare periods of clear weather constantly alter the perception of locations. In overcast conditions, the map appears more cohesive: light conceals some of the simpler forms, while fog and precipitation obscure distant views.
The same applies to local light sources. Darkened corners, red, and ultraviolet zones complicate firefights and help players hide. Sometimes, lighting masks an enemy as effectively as a dedicated ability. As a result, Marathon’s visuals cannot be called flawless, but they possess character, and the strong points cleverly mask the weaker ones.
Narrative Thirty Years Later
For a significant portion of the modern audience, Marathon is a new game. Yet, it’s a revival of an old Bungie series that first appeared in the mid-1990s on Macintosh. The original trilogy recounted the story of the spaceship Marathon, its journey to Tau Ceti, and conflicts with AI and alien races.
The new game continues this story, but with a twist. Beyond Bungie leaving the franchise dormant for nearly 30 years, the events of the new game take place approximately 100 years after the original trilogy. This causes many players to simply miss the context! The colony on Tau Ceti IV has long been established, but humans are no longer present: the population perished due to an unknown virus and anomaly, and the territory is controlled by the forces of the United Earth Space Council (UESC) and their regular troops in the form of faceless robots.
However, governmental forces are not the only ones vying for control of the planet. Corporations and other organizations with their own agendas are also involved in the story. It is through them that Marathon’s primary narrative is delivered.
The player does not assume the role of a specific hero, but rather a mercenary who enters raids through combat shells. This is a crucial detail of both the setting and gameplay. A shell can be lost, but the mercenary themselves remains alive and can embark on the next raid in a new body.
The story’s delivery is split into two parts. The first involves faction assignments, which advance the player through the plot and provide necessary context. The second is the Codex, containing records about the colony’s life, research, and daily routines. Fans of the old Marathon games will likely appreciate this approach, as the original titles also revealed lore through terminal entries. However, for an audience entering an extraction shooter primarily for progression and raids, all of this can feel superfluous.
In games of this genre, many players aim to level up as quickly as possible and establish a stable farming loop. At such a pace, dialogues and secondary context are often skipped. Therefore, Marathon has rich lore, but it primarily caters to those willing to play at a slower pace, read, and piece together the narrative.
Similar to All, Yet Like No Other
Even before its release, gamers tried to describe Marathon’s gameplay by comparing it to other titles. Visually, Roblox came to mind; mechanically, Escape from Tarkov, Apex Legends, Valorant, and Delta Force were mentioned. The comparisons are understandable, but Marathon ultimately resembles none of the above.
The game’s tempo is high. Firefights are built not only on holding positions but also on constant movement, yet weapons do not kill in a single shot. As a result, combat is more dynamic, but Marathon still remains a brutal game.
During playtesting, tier lists of the most effective weapons quickly formed in Marathon – shotguns often topped most lists. A double-barrel shotgun can swiftly eliminate even a well-protected opponent, whereas other weapons demand greater skill. Even expensive weapons with legendary attachments don’t feel as worthwhile an investment – though there’s always the option to keep distance from someone with a shotgun, which also requires skill.
The ranked mode also appears as an adaptation with noticeable simplifications. In other extraction shooters, rank is usually based on a variety of actions, but in Marathon, it all boils down to collecting valuables up to a specified quota. Special items exist for this purpose, valued primarily as a progress counter rather than actual loot. In practice, this leads to passive gameplay: teams quickly grab what they need and then prefer to ambush until extraction points appear.
The ranking problem is exacerbated by the game’s team-oriented nature. While it’s formally possible to enter solo, matches are still structured around engagements with squads. Solo players also face a specific limitation: they cannot collect valuables beyond the norm, whereas groups do not experience such a cap. Consequently, the ranked mode feels less like a test of skill and more like a format exclusively designed for team play.
Mercenary Creditors
Marathon’s main feature is its character system, which led to it being mistakenly classified as a “hero shooter.” The game offers six classes, each with unique abilities, making Rainbow Six: Siege a close analogy. Abilities here don’t replace gunplay; they augment it and significantly influence the course of an encounter.
A rare mechanic for the genre is resurrection. After losing health, a character doesn’t always die immediately; they fall into a knockdown state and can only crawl. An ally can revive them, while an enemy can finish them off. But even after being finished, the raid for that specific team member isn’t over: a crate with their items remains at the body’s location, interacting with which can bring a teammate back into the fight.
This decision has an important consequence. A player can be revived even after their gear has been taken by someone else. Formally, they are back in the raid, but effectively forced to continue the fight “naked” – the team will either have to re-acquire loot or share their own possessions with the revived player.
Two details complement the system. Firstly, the game has no strict limit on the number of knockdowns and deaths per raid, which is particularly important for group raids. Secondly, there’s an item for self-revival. For extraction shooters, this is still atypical, and in such nuances, Marathon distinguishes itself from more conservative genre representatives.
A Different Approach to Progression
In most extraction shooters, progression rests on three pillars: a hideout, traders, and character skills. The hideout allows crafting items, traders expand the assortment, and hero characteristics gradually provide useful bonuses.
In Marathon, this system has been revamped. There are no hideouts or crafting here. Instead, all progression is tied to relationships with six organizations. They sell gear, unlock access to new modules, and influence the shell’s parameters.
This is a significant departure from games where the main goal is to hoard as much expensive weaponry and armor as possible. In Marathon, the outcome of a skirmish depends less on the weapon’s rarity and more on the shell’s characteristics, implants, and available abilities. Shields provide additional health, but don’t turn the hero into a tank. And weapon quality depends on installed modules. Thus, even with a basic weapon, one can win a fight, while with a fully kitted legendary gun, one might die to a player with a knife.
Each organization is responsible for its own set of advantages. CyberAcme improves stamina, reduces fall damage, and expands storage. NuCaloric sells medicine and enhances regeneration. MIDA focuses on explosives and agility. Arachne boosts melee combat, executions, and ally revive speed. Traxus offers a wide selection of weapons and attachments. And Sekiguchi sells character enhancers and ability cooldown modifiers.
Ultimately, the difference between a newcomer and a veteran is determined less by the rarity of gear and more by a set of personal skills. What matters more is the player’s runner, how deftly they move, how often they can use abilities, and how much benefit they derive from implants and cores.
Pre-Raid Hassle
Marathon’s main weakness outside of raids is the preparation phase. Right from the main menu, the game presents too many disparate screens. Storage and character characteristics are spread across different tabs, forcing players to evaluate their build through constant menu switching.
The shop suffers from a similar problem. It’s divided into six separate markets, one for each faction, but navigating between them is unintuitive. To switch from the shop to the faction interaction window, a newcomer has to exit one menu, enter another, and then search for the desired section through faction tabs. Only after dozens of hours do players manage to find a button, hidden somewhere in the bottom left corner of the screen, that directs them from the faction skill tree to the shop and vice-versa.
For a newcomer, the equipment structure itself creates additional complexity. Besides weapons, shields, ammunition, and medicine, each runner has two slots for cores – these are runner modifiers that affect their abilities and playstyle. Some cores are universal, while others only work with a specific shell. For example, the Vandal has an option that allows marking targets with a repulsion cannon, and the Assassin has a core that speeds up movement while invisible. The higher the core’s rarity, the stronger its effect.
Implants are no less important. They are categorized by installation type: head, chest, and legs. They enhance a runner’s passive characteristics but come with a significant problem: the game doesn’t explain their side effects. Implants boost some parameters while cutting others, but these penalties aren’t always clear from the description. Therefore, players have to figure things out by constantly shuffling implants, returning to the character screen, and back to storage.
To this, a random bonus effect is added. Two identical implants might differ in a secondary ability. For instance, one might apply a toxin on knife hit, while another makes the character invisible upon self-revival or partner resuscitation. Due to this, players sometimes choose an enhancer not for its primary characteristics but for a random bonus – and this, too, can become part of build creation.
The situation with consumables is similar. Besides medkits, shield batteries, and self-revive injectors, there’s specialized medicine. Mechanic kits remove toxins, paralysis, and frostbite – effects frequently encountered in raids. OS Debugging Packs are needed against hacking and EMP effects on the player’s shell. Cardiostimulators enhance agility and heat capacity, allowing for faster and longer sprints. And Panacea fully restores health and shields and removes negative effects.
There are also more niche items. A signal jammer hides the runner from radars, enemy mines, and turrets, and distorts their silhouette for other players. Antivirus is only needed for events with contaminated zones and is truly important mainly on the “Spooky Swamp” and “Cryo Archive” maps, where these zones are present.
All of this creates no less of a headache than preparing for a raid in Escape from Tarkov. However, this problem can be alleviated by playing with pre-made faction kits. While these cannot be supplemented with items from one’s own storage, they allow for quick entry into a match. The problem is that expensive kits often don’t justify their price, while free ones, conversely, turn out to be surprisingly useful. With them, players can complete contracts and, if played well, defeat even better-equipped opponents, collecting their loot.
Each Map – 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 extract alive. The difference lies in the details.
Currently, four maps are available: “Perimeter,” “Spooky Swamp,” “Outpost,” and “Cryo Archive.”
- “Perimeter” is the starting location. It doesn’t have much valuable loot but is convenient for gathering basic materials for early progression.
- “Spooky Swamp” is richer in resources, and most of the faction’s story quests are tied to this location.
- “Outpost” is a compact, vertical, and the most confrontational map, where player clashes occur most frequently.
- “Cryo Archive” is the largest map presented, where not so much player clashes, but team interaction, puzzle-solving, platforming, and combat with NPCs are important. Here lies the most valuable loot and the highest risks.
Maps also have their own events. On “Perimeter,” a task to intercept valuable UESC cargo might be triggered – a simple and straightforward event offering everyone the chance to compete for good loot.
On “Spooky Swamp,” anomalous samples regularly appear. A perimeter lockdown also occurs there: a platform appears over part of the map, isolating the zone and dealing damage to anyone inside without protection. Antivirus is needed to pass through. Inside, players must disable a generator, collect valuable loot, and wait for the platform to move to another part of the map. Up to three such isolations can occur in one raid, and with each time, the reward becomes more valuable – and thus, exiting the zone with it becomes more dangerous.
On “Outpost,” the main point of attraction is the central tower. Access to it and its associated rooms requires keycards. They open gates, activate exits, and summon cargo ships. This divides the map into two types of players: some prepare to assault the tower, while others try to intercept the victors after the main events.
Each map also features local bosses – Wardens. These are the same robots, but with more aggressive AI and increased health and damage. The reward for victory is high, but the fight itself almost always attracts other players, who come not for the boss, but for those already engaged with it.
“Cryo Archive” is the toughest map available. It’s one of the sectors of the Marathon colony ship, housing the core of the local AI. Structurally, the map resembles Outpost: at the center lies the main challenge, where players must battle an alien boss – the Compiler. But entry conditions here are significantly stricter. Entry is only possible with a squad; solo queue is unavailable, as is the “RUK” shell (the local equivalent of Tarkov’s Scav). Furthermore, each player must have at least 5000 credits worth of equipment.
In addition to regular loot, on “Cryo Archive,” players need to increase their clearance level. This is done by collecting tokens from robots and hacking consoles. The higher the clearance level, the more ship compartments become accessible. To advance to Marathon’s main mystery, level five clearance and a sample for the DNA scanner are required.
Closed rooms with keycards present a separate puzzle. Opening them with just one card is insufficient: players must install batteries and a coolant capsule into the generator near the door, and also find the credentials of the correct employee. This means even access to niche rewards is turned into a multi-step task that must be solved throughout the entire raid.
It’s important to clarify that maps cannot be evaluated independently of the squad composition. The feeling of the same location changes depending on the combination of shells a group takes into the raid.
“Three is the Magic Number”
One of Marathon’s key characteristics is that its foundation is clearly built for a three-person squad. Formally, the game has a solo mode, but most systems operate as if the standard composition remains a trio.
This is evident in the raid’s very logic. Marathon builds tension not around slow and cautious looting, but around constant noise, time pressure, and the risk of third-party intervention. When one player covers a flank, the second engages in combat, and the third provides backup – such a system seems logical. Alone, the same level of spatial control is almost impossible to achieve.
The hero-based structure only amplifies this effect. Each class contributes uniquely to the squad. The game does not prohibit taking identical characters, allowing groups to be built around classic role distribution or around a specific tactic.
Three Assassins can play through invisibility and smokes, while three Vandals can focus on mobility and aggression. In both cases, Marathon supports not only diverse builds but also narrow specialization. This is another signal that the balance was initially geared towards team play.
Therefore, the recommendation to play Marathon with friends is not just advice in the vein of “it’s more fun.” In a group, the game truly shines: its tempo, resurrection system, hero abilities, and progression all seem tuned for trios.
There’s also a downside. In many extraction shooters, team play often leads to the practice of “gearing up” teammates and quickly fosters a grey market for items sold for real money. In Marathon, developers attempted to cut off this path. Resources cannot be freely transferred into a raid, and weapons, armor, and consumables given to a teammate are marked as borrowed. After a successful extraction, such items are returned to their owner.
However, the grey market itself has not collapsed, rendering the entire idea of equipment transfer restrictions a failure – service providers guide players through difficult raids, like “Cryo Archive,” for money, allowing them to collect top-tier loot themselves.
Because of this, team play in Marathon is strong in combat but limited in its economy. Some players are fine with this, others are pushed towards solo play. And there, the game feels different.
Marathon = Escape from Tarkov
The solo mode quickly reveals its secondary nature in Marathon. The first signal is matchmaking time. In a group, a raid is usually found quickly, but solo waiting times are noticeably higher. It’s a small detail, but it immediately sets the right impression: solo mode is not perceived as primary.
The main difference unfolds within the raid itself. In team play, abilities expand tactics, while in solo, they become a matter of survival. The player can no longer compensate for a hero’s weaknesses with allies, making shell selection much more critical here.
For cautious play, Triage – a medic capable of healing themselves and restoring shields with drones – is suitable. But more often, solo players gravitate towards the Assassin: invisibility and smokes work best in a mode where the goal isn’t to win a prolonged exchange, but to initiate combat first or disengage just as quickly.
At the opposite pole stands the Breaker. In solo excursions, he reveals his potential far less often and only with the right build. His shield wall rarely provides a decisive advantage, and dashes and tactical sprints work less effectively where information, positioning, and the right to the first shot play the main role, rather than maneuvering across the battlefield. Nevertheless, he is not useless.
This is why, in trios, Marathon resembles a hero-action game with constant exchanges, while in solo, it’s much closer to Escape from Tarkov. Sound, waiting, route control, and the ability to strike first come to the forefront. Most solo players quickly adopt a maximally cautious style: less noise, fewer unnecessary skirmishes, and more ambushes.
The game provides tools for such tactics. Mines are noticeable due to sensor highlights, so they work best in doorways and narrow passages. Non-standard use of mines has also found its place in the game: there’s a trap disguised as a deceased player’s crate. If another person tries to open it, the trap explodes and knocks out the target.
Direct one-on-one firefights also occur, and in these, mechanical aiming, shields, and accuracy matter more than in team fights. But even in such situations, solo remains a mode where the cost of error is too high. Therefore, most players try to avoid a fair duel.
A separate problem is bots. For a solo player, any encounter with robots is dangerous for several reasons. It reveals their position, forces them to spend resources, and opens a window for player intervention. Even after a complete clear, the zone does not become safe, because reinforcements arrive to replace destroyed enemies. Ultimately, solo mode itself pushes the player towards a stealthy approach.
RUK and Roaming
A separate mention must be made of RUK – a direct analog of Tarkov’s Scav. RUK connects not to a new match, but to an ongoing raid with pre-equipped gear, where the most valuable spots are often already looted.
On paper, the idea is useful: it’s a way to enter a raid without a full kit, collect leftover loot, and avoid risking primary equipment. But RUK has too many limitations.
RUK lacks a full set of combat skills: his arsenal only includes camouflage against robots and emergency regeneration. This is enough for stealthy movement but unsuitable for serious engagements. Players will have to rely more on tactical gear, like mines and grenades, lure players towards bots, and intervene in already active skirmishes.
Two fundamental limitations exacerbate the problem: RUK cannot complete quests, and he only connects to group raids. This means even as a conditionally free runner, he regularly encounters trios if he isn’t careful.
Nonetheless, the mode still has potential. By leveling up faction relationships, RUK can unlock implants, cores, and even a shotgun, which makes ambushes easier. But even with these improvements, RUK remains more of an additional mode and a last resort than a full-fledged tool for solo play.
Therefore, for a solo player, it’s often more advantageous to enter a raid as a regular hero with a free kit. This option provides more control, allows for quest completion, and doesn’t force the player into a disadvantageous format.
Verdict
Marathon is not an extraction shooter for a broad audience. The game remains harsh, demanding, and its barrier to entry is higher than many competitors in the genre. Mastering it requires significant time, studying the roles and characteristics of shells, and poring over character build guides.
The game does have strong points. Marathon plays at a fast pace, works well in trios, and offers dense lore for those willing to dive into it. The maps differ significantly from each other, and the weather and lighting help the visuals maintain their appeal even where the geometry of locations appears too simplistic.
The main problem lies elsewhere. The game performs poorly in solo format and, for now, doesn’t adequately support duo squads – although a paired mode is currently being tested. Additionally, before each raid, players have to navigate a cluttered interface until they learn it thoroughly.
Currently, Marathon possesses its most crucial assets: its unique rhythm and recognizable identity. But this is not a game for everyone. Those expecting a soft PvE extraction experience akin to ARC Raiders will find little here. Conversely, those ready to accept challenging matchmaking, high risks, and a strong dependence on team play, should consider exploring it now.