After the explosive reveal of Marathon, developers Bungie teased something with a QR code that lead the community into some puzzle-solving ARG. The reward was the release of a ViDoc- Bungie’s term for developer blog- where the team sells you more on the vision for Marathon.
Marathon is already an established IP, it’s the first series Bungie worked on- an FPS series for Mac computers before they made Halo and Destiny. But the change into a PVP extraction shooter- the new battle royale, the current trending genre in gaming- is a surprising one.
The ViDoc explains the appeal of an extraction shooter- should you push for more loot and risk losing it all if you die, or bank it in and stay away from engaging other players? It’s like Need For Speed Heat but with guns, and other players. Or for a more conventional comparison, Escape From Tarkov and a bit of The Division’s Dark Zone.
But what really is intriguing is the promise of an evolving, persistent world. Live service games have constantly evolve the game world over time- see Fortnite and Bungie’s own Destiny 2. But with Marathon, the world changes may be the result of some player’s action.
“Imagine if one crew happens to find an alien key,” said Christopher Barret, game director for Marathon. “They place it on this altar and then they get immortalised for opening up the next zone. And they have to go and figure out how to unlock that for everybody else.”
If figuring out Destiny raids on day-1 for the rush to be World’s First- or watching other players figure it out to witness a moment in history- is up your alley, looks like Marathon is being built around that concept.
The rest of the ViDoc shows developers playtesting the game, talking about that sweet, sweet aesthetic (“graphic realism”, “vibrant, beautiful but also mysterious”), confirmation of dedicated servers and dedicated teams working to bust cheating, and reactions of the team playtesting the game.
The ViDoc ends by saying that the team will be going dark after a while. But the next time they emerge, it will be closer to release and will come with a gameplay reveal. The game is yet to hit alpha stage, so let them cook for a while.
Marathon has no release date yet, or a release window so we can’t slap a year number to differentiate this title and the original 1994 game. It will be coming to PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S.