Hope for Marathon

 

It’s hard for me to not be cynical about an upcoming title. Especially knowing the track record of a specific franchise or developer. I’m the guy that started at Combat Evolved. Loved everything about Halo enough to pick up Destiny at launch in 2014.

And be monumentally disappointed with it.

“No you have to get House of Wolves for the full experience” my friends would tell me. “No man, The Taken King will fix the game for you”. And thus began my disillusionment at the release of unfinished games.

Destiny never grabbed me. Not creatively. Not mechanically. Especially not narratively. It felt painfully generic especially in the wake of the genre-defining space shooter that the developer had just left behind. And then for Bungie to say that Destiny would be their WoW. Their decade(s) long supported project. This was something of an unholy trinity. The weapons had no personality. The classes served minimal synergy to each other. Even playing with friends failed to ignite any sort of engaging gameplay loop. Destiny fell flat.

In the spirit of forgiveness I downloaded Destiny 2 a few months ago to see how far we’d come since 2014. Imagine my surprise at having to replay the first level of the original Destiny. If my entire body could eye-roll it would have. Maybe it’s recycled as a tutorial. Maybe it makes sense. But it was salt in the wound and I felt actively insulted. This is your opening? This is your best foot forward to (re)capture an audience? Something you did almost ten years ago and then slapping a “2” on the cover. It was a joke.

Eight months ago something lit inside me for Bungie that’s been dead for ten years. The teaser trailer for Marathon hit all my happy places. Sci-Fi. Future tech. I’m a sucker for highlighter neon colors. And then to find out it’s an extraction shooter. Look I’m not one to speak on extraction shooters. I’ve watched extensively though never played Tarkov. But I will take ANYTHING other than another battle royale or looter shooter. So I felt hope after this trailer. It’s something I can see myself spending money on (which is high praise coming from me).

My fear is that Marathon isn’t being set up for success. IGN reported Bungie leadership will “leave in droves” after the Sony acquisition in 2026. So we get this “new” IP and it immediately gets handed off to new staff, coupled with whatever resources they decide to still dedicate to Destiny. I’d love to watch Bungie redeem themselves. And who knows. Marathon could fail miserably and Destiny could possibly keep them afloat. 46k peak in active players within the last 24 hours on Steam. I’m hearing about fans being unhappy with the current flow of new content but that might be a topic for another day.

It’s hard for me to balance cynicism with caution. It’s something not limited to games that I also have to work on personally in my everyday life. There’s a little glimmer for me here. Wayyy off in the horizon.

I definitely didn’t start this post to bash Destiny or anyone out there who might have enjoyed it. If you’re a regular on Destiny please let me know what you love about it. What grabs you and what keeps you coming back?

Trey

🆇 @Tyrant_Virus3