Bungie doesn't see Marathon going anywhere: "We know where we want to take the story over the next few years"

Bungie's treating its new extraction shooter Marathon, well, like a marathon, not a sprint, as the developer apparently has a narrative plan in the works stretching years into the future.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ about how extraction shooters are bucking multiplayer trends, Marathon creative director Julia Nardin says, "We know where we want to take the story over the next few years, but I don't want to say it’s completely 'locked in' because it's important to us that our players be able to help shape it." For the studio, player input into the narrative is "part of the magic of playing a live service game."

Getting the balance between an authored, interesting story and one that constantly reacts to players themselves is a tricky one, though, so Nardin explains the story of the colony before our arrival is "locked". Anyone playing the game can unearth what happened on Tau Ceti by completing contracts and collecting certain items, and Bungie plans on adding more clues to the planet's backstory as the game keeps "evolving in ways that are informed by its past and a future that excites our players."

Still, one of the most contentious things about the studio's other live service game, Destiny 2, is how it vaulted older content and inadvertently made it a pain for newcomers to catch up on the narrative that's currently unfolding. Bungie seems to be focusing on the onboarding experience in a much more careful manner here.

"It's also important that players can jump into Marathon at any time," Nardin adds. "They'll always be able to uncover the mysteries of Tau Ceti's past while experiencing its present. We want every season to be a new entry point, and for new players to be able to understand what’s going on regardless of how long we've all been running."

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