Infill the Marsh with only a sponsored rifle and hope that this time, we might strike gold or just get bodied and go again. That’s just the way it goes in an Extraction shooter, but I get excited each time. Probably because I’m only 15,000 credits in the hole for this session, as we go back into Dire Marsh once again, and we could double that this time.
Marathon is what I expect when trying to engage with this genre, not a full game based on Ubisoft’s The Division’s Dark Zone, nor another Destiny clone made by Bungie themselves. Heck, it’s not even as hardcore as Escape From Tarkov, the game finds the balance of fun and difficulty that had made many players play Soulslike for a reason, with world-building you expect from a series that had exposition in text form well before it became a thing.
So, what do I love about it? Pretty much everything.
Presentation
When you first boot up the game, the intro cutscene will perhaps immerse players immediately with how sleek and cool the lore introduces you to its world. The Sci-Fi coolness oozes everywhere as you enter a level for the first time, the colors and contrast just pops up immediately. How vibrant everything looks, easy to see both the UESC and sometimes, other players as well. It’s just refreshing to see so many colors in a First Person Shooter, noticeably for an Extraction shooter where its rivals are more towards the gritty and realism, so seeing this contrast is very invigorating for a big-budgeted release. 
The UI/UX just fits well with what you’re seeing in the surrounding. Very informative to make sure you can see what’s happening, and its bits and bobs look very visible too, from how your shield and health looks, to even how the characters would do when opening a door or even exfilling via a device that looks like a full-screen Galaxy Flip.
Performance is rather good, with solid frames all-around on the PS5 version and even runs well on the RTX 2060 machine that I also use (which means I also double-dipped on Marathon), with how the contrast and colors coordination of all of the location we visit, playing it on Low at 1080p is super viable with solid 60fps at times.
Audio design is also another great point that Marathon has it going for. Quite a jump from the original trilogy, which is unsurprising, and even for Bungie’s previous game, Destiny 2, where the emphasis on miniscule stuff like footsteps, and even the opening of containers is heightened because any wrong move in this one, will set you back to the menus, a few credits short.
And let’s give a shout-out to the incredible voice acting, with a stack cast that includes Ben Starr, Erica Lindbeck, and even Roger Clark voicing AI computers and even the leading UESC Security Bot. And that’s some nice hint of irony for actual humans voicing computers that may or may not be on the brink of getting consciousness.
Gameplay![]()
First and foremost, don’t think of Extractions shooters as some Hard Mode for this genre, but rather another evolution of the shooting games pyramid that now includes some elements from other genres, mainly the Roguelite elements of gaining all of your stuff in a run or two, then losing it all when a mistake is made. It’s better for the psyche, when all you lost could be gain later on a good run. Its hook, plus with Bungie’s decades of refined gunplay, where some of the weapons might be familiar to fans of their previous works, just hits the spot of fun.
The weapons are quite unique in how they handle, with the SMGs being more for low-to-mid range, rifles being for long range combat and the shotgun being obscenely powerful to the point of usefulness, pairs well with how our Runners (the game’s version of Classes) and their gadgets contribute to the gameplay. Like Assassins being able to go invincible to land blows discreetly, or Vandal using powers that are reminiscent of a Guardian in Destiny 2 using their speed and jumping ability to get clear quickly from action.
All of this, plus Bungie being quite active in making the game as balanced as possible due to the nature of a PVPVE game, makes updates quite frequently to both keep the game fresh and enhance the experience, per say. Like they had been experimenting with Duos maps and have also added Ranked and their current in-season final boss, the Cryo Archive that’s within the Marathon ship itself.
Speaking of Maps, their design is perhaps almost perfect with how it ebbs and flows from point to point, with intentional choke points that are begging for firefights in points of the maps that are usually named.
Like Complex in Dire Marsh being quite a hotspot due to it being a questlines point for many, or the entirety of Outpost being a small glimpse into the chaos that players are waiting to enter each weekend at Cryo Archive. Where its maze-like complex matches the styles of Marathon Infinity maps, where its layers on top of one another as the madness takes over.
Though my only complain about the gameplay is not even related to the game itself, but rather the servers of the game being quite lackluster at times, to the points of rubberbanding where you might feel like you’re moving, but you’re stuck at the Spawn Point, or worst, at a point where other players could just eliminate you.
Content![]()
From the start of playing this game to my current level that’s enough for my Weekly “Weekend’s at the Cryo” runs took a few days that accumulated to around 16 hours, if we’re counting in Open-World gameplay hours ala Zelda’s Breath of The Wild. Doing and unlocking Contracts from our AI bosses is not too dissimilar to Destiny’s style of meeting your contact and doing Strikes, but now there’s the Roguelite element to contend with.
For its low price point, there’s a lot of stuff that can be done with it, from learning the locales from all four Maps (for now), to understanding how to use your Runner to its fullest potential, or even just messing around the game due to the objectives being quite out there, like eliminating 10 other players, or alerting the alarm to lure the UESC (along with other players within the map, of course) to your location to do bullet tango, and perhaps win.
And with Bungie’s current trajectory, we’ll be getting seasonal updates over the course of the year at least, so rest assured, content will not dry out if you just enjoy the game at your pace.
Personal Enjoyment![]()
As someone that was there from the beginning of the era, way back before its formal appearance with a name in 2023, I was at the start for these Extraction shooter types, which was the game I mentioned at the top of this review, The Division. Its Dark Zone mode was quite revolutionary as your gear could be gone if your time at the Zone went sideways and it was fun.
It was 2015 after all, and implementing a Roguelike mode was quite a power mode (they also introduced a survival mode but that didn’t caught on), but it was more PVE focus due to how well everyone was working together, to the point where someone being a Rogue Agent at the end, gets met with a thousand sprays like that scene in The Sopranos.
So what I see in Marathon is what I envisioned this sort of game should be: ruthless, sometimes juvenile as you have to specialize in ganking other players in your quest to be Durandal’s best soldiers, willingly or not. And it’s balancing act of the bots being hard and the players also hitting harder makes it more engaging than say Tarkov and their “Rat” problems, or the too laid-back nature of Arc Raiders that I didn’t particularly enjoy, which I also saw in the second Division and their Dark Zone.
So would I see another evolution of this genre a decade from now? Probably not and hey, this is quite a nice hill to see the edge of the Extraction shooter world, because this game is perhaps the Peak.
Verdict![]()
Marathon is good, looks incredible and plays like an amp-up Destiny Contest Dungeon Strike. It will suck your time and emotions with the highest of highs when you successfully exfil and the lowest of low when you don’t, it’s that sort of excitement that has been missing in my gameplay loop for quite some time.
New players or even old fans of the Marathon series should just jump in, is what I’m saying, you could be pleasantly surprised.
Played on PS5 and PC, Review copy on PS5 provided by the Publisher.
Marathon (2026)
- Presentation 9
- Gameplay 9
- Content 9
- Personal Enjoyment 9
Marathon is good, looks incredible and plays like an amp-up Destiny Contest Dungeon, it's that sort of excitement that has been missing in the gameplay loop for quite some time.