While it certainly hasn’t been a Concord-esque disaster by any stretch of the imagination, it would demand an extremely optimistic outlook to say Marathon has been a success.
Sales have been soft on console, and even on PC – where the extraction shooter has performed best – it’s struggled to retain player numbers on par with other live service titans.
But fans absolutely love the game, and while it’s certainly hardcore in nature, there’s undoubtedly something for legendary dev Bungie to build on here.
And with Destiny 2 shutting up shop in the coming weeks, it’s going to need to make things work.
Fortunately, Season 2 is right around the corner, and waiting to energise players. This new cinematic trailer, teasing the 2nd June update, goes particularly hard like many of the release’s promo materials. I’m really enjoying the cosmic horror vibes on display here.
The blurb says fans can expect a “new map with Night Marsh, a new Runner shell Sentinel, the Cradle, new weapons, progression improvements, and more”.
I’m not writing Bungie off here.
Most people who engage with Marathon are super passionate about it, and that’s a strong foundation.
I just get the feeling the dev’s going to have to suck this one up and put in the hard yards: listen to its community and keep overdelivering.
There have been live service games that have carved out a niche this way, and I don’t see any other option for the Washington dev at this point.
