There's only one breed of bird on Tau Ceti IV: the Skrac. They keep a squawking vigil, watching over dying runners as they bleed out, marking the moment with disinterest. Once everybody's dead or exfilled, theirs are the only organic eyes to look out over the ruined colony.
Perhaps it's fitting, then, that whenever I check the discourse around Marathon, I can still hear the flap of vultures' wings. Everywhere I look, punters predict the death of Bungie's latest shooter. Armchair analysts point to diminishing player numbers on Steam, and Sony's own reports appear to back up the gloom. In a recent roundup of its financial year, the publisher reported impairment losses of roughly $765 million against Bungie's assets.
Given the eye-watering $3.6 billion that Sony spent on the studio in 2022, it's fair to say that Bungie is testing the truth of the statement it made while the ink dried on the acquisition agreement: "We have found a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are". Over the years since, the developer has suffered multiple rounds of mass layoffs – diminishing its headcount to the point where fans have begun to question the studio's ability to breathe life into a deflated Destiny 2 while also telling Marathon's evolving story.
Most of all, though, the gaming audience remembers Concord: the Sony shooter that was pronounced dead inside of two weeks. It's a debacle that has come to symbolize the Japanese giant's stumbling pivot to live-service projects. And make no mistake, it has left a scar. Players have long understood – somewhat reluctantly – that online games can close down within a year or two of launch. But Concord made tangible the idea that a heavily-marketed AAA release might not even survive as long as the milk in your fridge. Why invest your time figuring out the combat mechanics and progression systems of a game that might be rendered unplayable at any moment? If there's a hesitance and cynicism in the air when it comes to Sony's server-based ventures, then the publisher only has itself to blame.
But Marathon is not Concord. It differs from Firewalk Studios' effort in one crucial respect: it is beloved. In our Marathon review, Features Editor Andy Brown wrote that it "captures the highest highs of extraction shooters, trims the finickiness that has kept casual players from engaging with the genre, and ties everything together with striking sci-fi flair."
I would agree, and have noticed my peers in both the mainstream and independent games press covering Marathon with a rare fervour. The game has inspired a zine decorated with in-game photography, an entire series of essays, and precisely one comparative analysis written by an actual marathon runner. I, personally, cannot stop writing and thinking about it.
A hit is a hit
Marathon is getting a "PVE-only mode" as Bungie responds to the state of the game
Juxtaposing Marathon's Steam response with that of Destiny 2 is instructive. While Marathon may have a tenth the number of user reviews, it is also more highly rated: sitting at 'Very Positive', compared to its predecessor's 'Mostly Positive'.
"Marathon is fun when you ignore people telling you it is not," reads one user review. "Great game with excellent gun play and a dev that is clearly listening to their community," says another, adding: "I haven't had great things to say about Bungie in years but this game made me a fan again."
A third devotee, with 270 hours on the clock, lists the stages of suffering in Marathon – from joy and fear through to apathy, anger and despair. "You realize you will never be good," they write. "And after all that you still want to play one more match."
Why does any of this matter? Think back to Concord again. Keeping its servers online would have been a negligible cost to Sony - one it has shouldered for numerous other games long after their playerbases have dwindled. But Concord was worth more to Sony dead than it was alive. Its very existence was a cudgel which detractors took pleasure in swinging at PlayStation day after day, damaging its reputation for first-party quality in the process. Fairly or not, Concord had become a PR disaster – and the faster Sony could memory hole it, the better.
Marathon, by contrast, is a critical darling. A much-needed counterpoint to the otherwise very convincing argument that Sony's live-service investments have come up short.
In recent years, streaming services have acclimatized us to the idea that conversation is currency. Saturday Night Live UK might appear to be an expensive risk for Sky TV, for instance, with its army of comedians, cue card writers and set designers building bespoke sketches every week. But the show gets people talking, and that conversation opens the door to more subscribers.
You might not think of Sony as a subscription business. But with tens of millions buying PlayStation Plus every month, it very much is. And if you're anything like me, when you choose to buy a new console in the company's ecosystem, you're factoring in the conversation around its first-party games. By the time the PS6 comes along, most of us are going to need more than a second God of War sequel and a re-re-remake of The Last of Us to buy in. The promise of more genre-leading games on the level of Marathon will likely go a long way toward sealing the deal.
The mainstream success of Arc Raiders is an anomaly in the extraction shooter genre. Marathon has proved that. But it's also proved that bold and original first-party games are still emerging from PlayStation – and that message is one that Sony would do well to keep broadcasting.
Marathon risks watering down its best feature if it keeps listening to FPS fans
