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When darkness falls in a big-budget game, it's typically to set the mood. You're rarely at risk of getting lost or bumping into furniture. Instead you might wander beneath a full moon, its glow diffusing across the clouds, casting the land below in an atmospheric blue tint. Or you might follow a series of helpful light sources placed just so, like will o' the wisps, to ensure you don't stray from the main objective. In these games, nighttime is not a threat, nor a cloak, but a vibe.
Marathon, as always, has taken the tougher route. The centerpiece of its second season is Night Marsh – a familiar map plunged into blackness. There, Bungie treats the nighttime not simply as an aesthetic but as what it really is: a daunting reconfiguration of how you navigate the world.
Running in the dark
Marathon review: "My favorite multiplayer shooter in years"
Every player is handed a flashlight with an unlimited battery, but frankly, they'd be foolish to use it. PvP in Marathon is a positional puzzle – one in which the teams who can track their opponents tend to come out on top – and a parade of bobbing white torches is a temptingly easy target for any opponents in the area.
That reality is doubly true in Solos, the game's de facto stealth mode, where I haven't seen a single player use a flashlight since Season 2 went live early last week. Instead, my peers and I are relying on spatial memory to get around. It's the first-person shooter equivalent of getting up at 3am for a wee, and trusting that you can remember the obstacles along the way: the corners of the bed, the next door handle, a flight of stairs you'd rather not tumble down sideways.
Except in the Marsh, the obstacles are spread over a far larger exploration space, and are made up of abandoned agricultural infrastructure – left behind when the colonists of Tau Ceti IV vanished decades ago. You do your best to remember: wasn't there a ladder on the north side of this Maintenance bay? And beyond that, an open window leading to the roof? Fortune favors those with a rough mental map of the buildings they're stumbling through. It's that knowledge which allows you to circumnavigate patrolling bots without making a racket.
Since launch, this has been a game defined by sound. But now that's often all you have: the footsteps of nearby players, the buzz of the bots they've awoken, the smash-and-tinkle of a window cracked with the butt of a rifle. And there are new noises here too. The echoing residue of moans on the wind. The splash of brackish water, disturbed by the memory of workers' waders. During Marathon's first season, some missions suggested that the anomaly at the heart of the Marsh warped not only space but time too. That phenomenon appears to be worsening, as the anomaly widens like an untreated wound.
The agricultural AI that still watches over the Marsh seems to be unravelling as well. "Time fertilises all things," it gabbles joyously. "And we have so much here." Then, in tones of despair: "Let them know they are… searching… in the wrong place." As Tannoy announcements go, it doesn't get more unnerving than: "Dr Song to sublevel… Dr Song. Who will remember you?" The soundscape of Marathon used to be a known quantity, but now it's haunted. That fact isn't just unnerving, but dangerous - exposing players to risks they haven't yet grasped.
The potential rewards are higher, too, though. Defeated bots now drop UESC Certs - a currency that can be used to unlock crates and caches, culminating in the looting of the command center which stands high above the map. Certs are also needed to activate most of the Marsh's exfil points - an act which turns on the floodlights and reveals your position to observant squads. More than once I've fallen foul of teams who've moved like commandos through the swamp, picking off the players who blow up bots in search of the Certs they need to get out.
Yet there's a little more wiggle room to survive a messy teamfight in the dark, even if you're on the losing side. Finding a cubbyhole and waiting for the battle to blow over is a viable if frightening option – and even a downed ally won't necessarily be looted for their best stuff if their body is overlooked in the night.
It's in moments of heightened horror like these that I'm reminded of Amnesia: The Bunker and Thief: The Dark Project – the latter of which is getting a remaster, announced during this week's PC Gaming Show. In these games, the nighttime is both a tool and an impediment, and its potential to both assist and betray is forgotten at your peril.
"There is a quiet beauty in the silence of the night," says Marathon's AI narrator, ONI. "Do not allow it to placate you."
