Bungie’s Marathon is not the usual extraction shooter, here’s why

The extraction shooter genre is unforgiving — a single mistake can cost players hours of loot grind. When Bungie quietly announced that its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon (currently in closed alpha), was also going to be a competitive title, the fan base was baffled, to say the least.

So, what do we know about Bungie’s new release, and what Marathon game features make it stand out? Let’s explore. 

Extraction shooters are player vs player experiences, sometimes with AI enemies, where users are deployed on a map and tasked to loot containers and stashes of materials. 

If a player dies while deployed, they lose not just every item they found until then but everything they deployed with: weapons, armour, munitions, powerups, and consumables. PvP fights in extraction shooters are dangerous but rewarding, as the winners get to keep most of the losers’ stuff.

So, what does Bungie offer to Marathon players? 

Bungie has decided to take this formula and adapt it, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, to his historic 1994 franchise Marathon. 

After the latest reveal, a lot of what the fans were expecting became official: the game is going to be a hero-based extraction shooter, it will have all the extraction mechanics that someone might expect, it’s going to have a non-linear story, and it’s going to be a “competitive experience” in the words of the game director Joe Ziegler, who was Valorant’s Game Director before moving to Bungie.

The stream didn’t go into much detail about what the director meant, but in an interview with popular streamer Benjamin ‘DrLupo’ Lupo, the assistant game director Del Chafe said:

“[The game] will be rating a few things in competitive runs. We’re not ready to tell what they are going to be, but there will be ranks built to let players express their skill level against other players.” 

Chafe goes on to say that ranked “will be a separate mode that is going to need optimised loot from players, and that upon extracting will turn into a score of what has been achieved during the run.”

The assistant game director didn’t confirm or deny a competitive-exclusive set of rewards, but, at least on the cosmetic side, it would be expected as a way to show off one’s prowess.

If implemented correctly, this mode could make Bungie’s Marathon substantially different from other extraction shooters, which lack a form of competition other than successfully extracting from a run. 

Right now, as streamers and users in the alpha test reported, what sets the game apart from the competition is its aesthetic and the signature, industry-leading Bungie gunplay. 

Its main competitors in space are Escape from Tarkov, which has a modern-day setting (as opposed to Bungie’s sci-fi) emphasising realistic gunplay, and the upcoming Arc Riders by Embark, the studio behind The Finals. 

Also, Marathon will be almost the only extraction shooter on the console until Arc Riders’ debut, but the two games have remarkable differences.

Bungie’s Marathon is a fast-paced, first-person hero shooter, while Embark’s game takes a third-person approach with fully customisable characters with no abilities and a stronger focus on exploration.

What makes Marathon different from other extraction shooters is its design, gunplay, aesthetic, and rich potential in terms of the narrative, as it takes place in the same universe as the previous games.

Some of Marathon’s game features are those of other live services in this genre. There will be a seasonal narrative, a seasonal loot pool (weapons, mods, augments for Runners and resources), and seasonal resets of player vaults, much like in Escape from Tarkov.

The game also has six vendors to trade with and accept contracts from. Their reputations will also change from season to season and provide different benefits to players. The story will progress through these vendors and will tell users what happened on the planet Tau Ceti IV, where the colony ship Marathon arrived decades before and suddenly broke communications with Earth.

The game will launch with six characters (called Runners) and three core maps, plus a fourth one, set on the Marathon ship, which will be extremely hard, featuring raid and dungeon-like mechanics reminiscent of Bungie’s own Destiny 2. 

More of everything (runners, maps, guns, and loot) will come with seasons for all those who own the game, which will not be free to play. 

Bungie said that Marathon is going to be “a premium title not at a premium price”, so it’s expected to debut at $40 as Helldivers did in February 2024 to critical and public acclaim.

If Bungie gets the community and the competitive parts of the game right, when Marathon comes out on September 23, the game could quickly become one of the best extraction shooters on the market. 

However, there are a few caveats to this ambitious goal. The first one is that, at launch, the game will not have a solo playlist but will only feature teams of three. While this is great for groups of friends, those who prefer to play alone could be turned off once the game releases.

Also, a very common feature of the genre, proximity chat, is not being implemented right now due to safety concerns for the players. 

These types of games, however, rely a lot on gamers being able to communicate with each other, even if they are adversaries, to de-escalate potentially costly conflicts or form unexpected alliances. 

Also, if a competitive scene is to rise from this title, for example, by having a big invitational with all the top squads in the world, the map, the loot progression, and many other aspects of the game would have to be tailored to produce an entertaining spectacle. 

Most extraction shooter matches tend to be very frantic for brief periods of time, with a lot of looting-healing pauses in between. 

To succeed as a potential esports, Marathon would need a solid grassroots scene fostered by a game that’s enticing to play, as well as some support from the developer (Bungie) and publisher (Sony) to drive up engagements with at least one big in-person event in the year following release.

Marathon is still in development, so Bungie has a chance, with proper feedback, to cater both to a casual audience interested in the story and the setting and a competitive one that wants to test their mettle against other players. 

The numbers from the ongoing alpha are promising, with a debut at more than 170,000 peak concurrent viewers on Twitch. However, the general opinion on the game is still mixed after a big presentation was perceived as a little too vague. 

We’ll see how the remaining months of development shape the game and whether Bungie is really ready to become an esports powerhouse.