We’re very close to the release of Marathon and it’s safe to say the general gaming community’s feelings about the game has changed since last year. It went through a rough few months from a poorly received Alpha in April 2025, to a controversy about stolen art, to a smashing success in Arc Raiders. I do believe it would have been a better game in September than it was in April, but I don’t think that would have been nearly enough to not be in trouble at launch and probably get buried by the launch of Arc Raiders in the following month.
The guns feel good to shoot. The time-to-kill is maybe a little too fast at base, but that does help squad fights move quickly. The UESC bots are very dangerous and two or three of them can take you out if you don’t respect them. The environment plays an interesting role in matches too. If you’re in a match with rain you generate a little less heat and if it’s heavy rain you generate even less heat. This, also, applies to running in water. So you could get the third tier of this buff (seems like the max is 3) with a combination of being in water while it’s raining and sprint to your hearts content. I imagine it’ll be the similar for generating heat on the Outpost map.
We already know we come across the S’pht in the Marathon map, so it’s reasonable to assume we come across the Pfhor at some point in the future which means we’ll get some different AI combatants and possibly some new alien weapons. It’ll be interesting to see how the design language changes for them. I love the art style a ton, but I can’t imagine the Pfhor will be blocky like the UESC Bots and by extension neither will their weapons.
There’s a lot of promise in Marathon. I hope Bungie gets to realize that promise
Admin-S