Marathon (2026): End of Season One Review

Delivers on all fronts, design- and gameplay-wise; it's already a personal all-time favorite. A fast track to robber baron Buddhism if your heart is true, with unforgettable experiences like Cryo in spades.

Doubt

Marathon (2026) was not released in a moment of confidence for Bungie. Destiny 2 vaulting (November 2020) had left diehards with an enduring bad taste in their mouth,¹ and dinged many peoples' belief in Bungie's ability to administer a game in the long term. This was also just a weird moment for Marathon of all franchises to make its return. Terms like 'hero shooter' were floated, right around the time Concord had just experienced a world record pace crash and burn. The game's post-reveal pre-launch window was marred by a fairly high profile plagiarism scandal involving artist Antireal, whose assets were used (sometimes seemingly unmodified) in early builds of the game, revealed in May 2025. In June 2025, the release of the game was pushed back indefinitely. I think all but the most devout were smelling a visually striking game that was nevertheless going to be dead on arrival.

Now let me jump back a couple steps, speaking less historically and more personally. I think my friend group (including more than a few OG Marathon superfans) was feeling the way a lot of people were when the announcement trailer hit: "Really? An extraction shooter?" We were split on the aesthetic; the high-contrast, 3D printed techwear brutalism resonated with some and repulsed others. There were intermittent (and in my opinion unfair) jabs of "What if it was singleplayer/cinematic though?"

But there was something there, obviously in the May 2023 announcement trailer. The synth-harpsichord, the silkworms stiching together entire human forms, the surface-of-the-sun colored monitors blaring "IN THE HEAVENS THEY ARE WAITING," the glitch-laden bluescreens showing what seemed to be angels or people burning, the almost Mirror's Edge levels of color contrast, pink flowers in grey plastic hydroponics vats... I wanted to believe this visual style would go somewhere, and I wanted to believe it would be more than just a neat thing to look at from time to time.

The cinematic reveal short dropped in April 2025. Bright yellow prefabricated structures litter an alien shore while the colony ship above it detonates spectacularly, showering colonists in debris. Some exasperated punky robot thing (Vandal) relives her debt briefing a few times back-to-back-to-back, in different colorways, not outfits, each rerun. A radar dish-faced robot (Recon) has her entire face shattered by a sniper while talking to a grey guy (Assassin) about a music chip. The punky robot loots her, and is chased into security force gunfire by the aforementioned grey guy, where she explodes violently into blue gore, dropping grotesquely like a puppet with its strings cut. "Look on my works ye mighty and despair," reads a forlorn voice, as our grey guy is assassinated from offscreen, intercut with shots of an abandoned space colony.

At this point in time, I am now absolutely certain what whatever is happening here, at least artistically and narratively, is special, though I'm really not sure the game will ever even arrive.

Turnaround

I can identify two clear turning points in my hopes for Marathon. One, the announcement of the resolution of the Antireal plagiarism scandal by the artist herself in December 2025.

Two, these gifs:

I'm dead serious. The ability of a game to inspire Posting™, to develop a fun, positive sort of subculture, is something I find very telling.

The real 'hook, line, and sinker' moment, though, was the Server Slam (February 26 - March 2, 2026). I can't speak for anyone else, but almost instantly, all doubt was erased. This game fucking rocked. It was one of those rare, genuine "I'm sad I'll never experience this for the first time again" moments. Stumbling blindly into Marathon with a rotating cast of two friends, always spectated by a half-dozen others waiting to take their turn in our rotation, was a wholly unique experience, one I can't really equate with anyting other than... I dunno, the launch of Tom Clancy's The Division in 2016? In the decade between The Division and Marathon, I don't think there was another time so much of my friend group converged on the same game. It was uncynical, launch Pokemon Go levels of "peace and love on planet Earth."

The game just felt spectacular. Bungie, for all their flaws in administering games in the long term, had struck another core game design home run. Every gun felt and looked distinctive, and Shell abilities were nicely diversified and powerful without being so overwhelming that the game felt like a hero shooter. The maps were drop-dead gorgeous, with Perimeter perfectly setting out the game's visual thesis: this is a world that does not want you here, nearly but ultimately not brought to heel by technicolor prefabrications. Dead colony installations drawing from the visual language of bleeding-edge sports equipment and 3D printing litter the landscape as almost-comprehensible megastructures. The game's soundtrack of eerie, unintrusive, hypnotic electronica was perfect, and I've never been happier to not hear a distorted guitar in my life.

There were so many little moments in the bigness of Marathon that made it stick in my mind. Finding a new gun and showing it off, like laughing at how the CE Tactical (the game's lowest-end sidearm) looked like it was purpose-built to get be ditched in a pond after killing someone. Screaming in mock horror as we all lemming trained our way right into a poison plant's gas cloud. Finding the WSTR ("waster," the game's sawed-off double-barrel shotgun) for the first time, sprinting into a smoke cloud as Assassin, and vaporizing the first vaguely human-shaped blob to move in front of me. Finding my first thermal sight, and assembling a 'Swagnum' (Magnum pistol + muzzle brake + thermal).

Fully half of my main group chat immediately rebranded to MIDA backronyms. I was Mike In Da Attic. Someone else became Most Interesting Dude Alive. A lesbian friend made one I don't have the pass to write.

And this was just the Server Slam.

Making a Dope FPS

Over the course of Marathon I have decided that there are fundamentally four types of FPS, dictated by two pairs of traits:

• Utility: Gunfights are dictated by who can use equipment and character tools better
• Movement: Gunfights are won and lost almost entirely through maneuvering
• Geometry: Gunfights are predominantly about regulating angles and target access
• Aimlabs: Gunfights are almost exclusively determined by fast, snappy aim duels

If you ignore the fact that this completely falls apart under closer inspection, or the fact that basically all of this is underpinned by time to kill (TTK), it kinda sorta makes sense if you squint. Really, I just wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek table. Whatever.

What I really mean to convey is that Marathon strikes an odd-but-delightful balance with its combat-focused design decisions. Despite having some very strong movement options (a universal slide, Destroyer's airdash and sprint, Vandal's double jump and power slide), Marathon is not a Movement Game™ where the primary determinant of a gunfight is your ability to track a cluster of 16 pixels moving laterally at Mach nine. TTK runs a pretty wide gamut, with extremely short TTKs happening at extreme near and far ranges, while the midrange is dominated by slightly slower-killing weapons that privilege stability. This is all modulated by the defender's shields, which in following with the rest of the game's items, follow a grey → green → blue → purple → gold hierarchy.

In my experience, gunfights feel more like empowered Counter Strike or detuned Valorant on blown-up maps than anything else, though with guns that (unsurprisingly) feel distinctly Bungie. Angle control and vision regulation are king, where utility is used to secure an advantage and crack open a stalemate, not to steamroll. Collecting information is as important as actually clicking on the opposition. When you ping or shoot people, for example, you get a little popup that tells you what tier of shields they have, which allows for some excellent unspoken communication between teams. I see a team in the distance, fire a volley with weapons I'm iffy about at this range, and see someone on that team has purple shields. That team fires back, their weapons seem better, and I am immediately reminded I have green shields. Do you know what I do? I leave.

Part of the brilliance of Marathon's construction is the unspoken sexual tension between the extraction shooter elements and the satisfying, decision making-driven gunplay. On the one hand, all but the most extreme gear differentials feel outplayable with proper positioning and deployment of Shell abilities. On the other hand, if I have anything worthwhile in my bag, I'm probably not trying to lose it. On the other other hand, if your baseline kit is better than mine, I probably want it. So playing Marathon and embracing the PvP spirit quickly clues you into the game's logic, a constant set of bullet chess calculations on what engagements are worthwhile.

Brushes with death feel genuinely threatening, narrow escapes are thrilling, and avoiding fights altogether often feels like a satisfying decision, not just the equivalent of looking at RTS autocomplete odds and shrugging. At the same time, taking an uphill battle with full information and making it work purely through decision making fight execution is an experience with few direct equivalents.

The Gameplay Loop

I trust you're a reasonably intelligent human being, so I'm just going to bullet point this list, because I think an objective list of things in the game is boring to read, not fun to write, and does a bad job of conveying the experience it provides (which I will talk about later), okay? Okay. Some of this is different in Season Two, okay? Okay. Here's a mega 'too long; didn't play' of what Marathon (2026) is:

Meta-Progression

• Accept quests from different factions to gain rewards and faction experience
• Trade in looted items and faction experience for faction rewards
• Faction rewards grant you persistent upgrades to your character and shop
• Read Codex entries to learn about the world and customize your equipment

In-Game

• Queue up with up to three total players
• Complete objectives in accordance with your faction contracts
• Loot points of interest and fight the UESC (non-playable enemies)
• Kill other people for glory and for the contents of their bags
• Compete for irregular map activities, which grant special high-value rewards
• Collect lore items and complete challenges to progress your Codex
• Exfiltrate with your gains or die trying

Reeducation

Marathon has somehow also made a great case for adult reeducation, not in the political sense, but in a literal "let's send some adults back to the fourth grade for a bit" way. It is a game that asks you to read. Somehow, this has been controversial. Items do things, and item descriptions tell you what they do. Late-game content has some complex mechanics, which can be understood by reading mission text. Much in the spirit of the OG Marathons, the vast majority of the lore is delivered through text, which you can read. Whatever, like half of Americans are functionally illiterate, so it's no surprise many gamers are not up to the task. I will concede the menus can be a little dense, especially at first, but please just read the words that are on your screen and it will probably work out.

I think this is the real secret to new Marathon's success; cramming this dense world information down your throat in real time would be moronic, and would in all likelihood necessitate the construction of a much less compelling singleplayer experience. Genuinely I do not think this could have worked as a singleplayer package while preserving the same sense of discovery, replayability, and philosophical cohesion. Making it a multiplayer extraction shooter, while definitely a chilling pitch, allows three things to happen simultaneously:

1. Tasking the player with feeling out the world themselves makes discovery feel organic
2. The zero-sum nature of an extraction shooter meshes with the themes of intercorporate warfare
3. Dense lore can be revealed to the player incrementally, complemented by meta-progression

You, the player, are an uninvited scavenger picking through the ruins of a dead colony at the behest of competing megacorporations, and in doing so you face off against other players for access to the limited pool of truly high-value weapons, equipment, and lore items in each run. The play experience and writing make a perfect circle.

When I'm rifling through a locked room on Dire Marsh, low on ammo and health, hearing player footsteps clonk noisily two floors up, and I see an Emotional Support Plushie, the one I need to round out my collection of five to get all the lore entries for that item, my thought is not "I wish you were a gun," my thought is "I will protect this thing with my fucking life."

Basically, I don't know why they decided Marathon (2026) should come back. I don't know why they decided it should be an extraction shooter. Above all else, I have no clue how they stuck the landing.

Finding Your Fun

One of the things I like most about Marathon is it gives you a lot of ways to self-select into the play experience you want, and while you do unlock three additional maps as you progress, they are not sequenced in a "Do one until you get the next" way.

So, as of the very end of Season One, Marathon has three permanent maps (Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost), a windowed Cryo Archive queue, a windowed ranked queue that rotates across maps, and some 'novelty' queues designed to make the game more approachable for duos and new players.

Maps and Queues

Perimeter is the starter map, and probably the most 'segmented,' it has lots of relatively self-contained areas that block line of sight to others, so the overall threat level from players is relatively low, and it's relatively hard to stumble upon another group without discovering each other basically simultaneously. At the same time, the average loot level is pretty low, and without getting into locked rooms or doing the relatively scarce mid-match activities, you're probably not going to be walking out filthy rich. It's a great place to get your bearings, while remaining fun to romp through once you've gotten a little stronger.

Players then unlock Dire Marsh, a sprawling, open map with enormous sightlines; sniper rifles are king and knowing when you can't take a fight is queen. Dire Marsh has much more going on in the way of mid-match activities, and accordingly it's much riskier. More AI enemies are present, they tend to be stronger, and crossing the map in general is more dangerous. More often than not, your notice that you've been spotted will be you getting shot, not you seeing the person aiming at you.

Outpost comes next, not that much smaller but way denser, introducing in-match progression via three distinct types of clearance card, which grant you access to supply drops, locked armories, additional exfiltration options, and Pinwheel, an intensely high-risk area (including a map-wide alarm if you make it in) with excellent payout.

Ranked rotates across maps, and your progression is measured through the value of what you extract with beyond what you brought in. Depending on the map, this can take a lot of forms (Perimeter and Dire Marsh are sniper city, Outpost becomes quite slow with huge bursts of action, etc).

Cryo Archive is open late in the week and into the weekend, offering a more or less PvP raid-adjacent experience. With a minimum loadout value requirement and a labyrinthine, heavily mechanical map, Cryo demands study, preparation, and coordination, and you're going to be universally running into heavily kitted players. Beyond loadout value, Cryo Archive is home to seven Vaults, a series of locked rooms that require you to bring keys in ahead of time, each with escalating in-match requirements to open them, and accordingly escalating loot.

Endgame

Okay, the important question. What do you do in the long haul? As you complete the aforementioned map activities, like killing bosses, finishing lockdown sequences on Dire Marsh, doing UESC convoys on Outpost, and the like, you'll get high value gear and keys. Keys come in two varieties, one for locked rooms on non-Cryo maps and one for Cryo vaults.

Non-Cryo keys grant you access to locked rooms on the indicated map, and depending on their value (blue, purple, gold), you'll get access to different types of highly valuable loot. Blue rooms give you crafting materials to clear the mid-game progression hurdles, purple rooms give you tons of guns, and gold rooms give you the world (EXCEEDINGLY rare keys). They're a major progression engine, helping you both with general faction advancement, and with accruing a solid base of equipment to take into Cryo, Ranked, or just general adventuring.

Cryo keys, on the other hand, let you into Cryo vaults for their own rewards. Cryo Vaults, numbered 1-6, present an escalating series of access challenges, with accordingly better rewards. Cryo Vault 1, for example, only requires five batteries, which you find in Cryo in relative abundance, and its corresponding key, which is not terribly uncommon - by the time of the Season One wipe, I had like five in my inventory, not counting several I had already used. Vault 6, on the other hand, requires nine batteries, a cryo coolant (which must be found and filled for additional batteries, or you can find a filled coolant with higher security clearance, also accrued per-run), anti-virus kits, a secret sequence retrieved from a secret lab, completion of another secret lab with an accompanying boss fight, and that's before you actually do the vault puzzle.

Needless to say, Cryo is a major time- and gear-sink, one that I find to be suitably challenging, and I really appreciate the level of focus and teamwork it requires. It's just one of many ways you can spend your fairly- and ill-gotten gains, though it is most definitely my poison of choice.

Robber Baron Buddhism

Playing Marathon involves, nay, necessitates dying a lot. You will die because you didn't know the map well enough, you will die because you got ambushed, you will die because you thought you could fight that boss and you couldn't, you will die because you couldn't fight that boss and you got ambushed and you didn't know the map well enough to make an escape, so on and so forth. You will lose items you think are cool, and while the weapon mod system makes it pretty easy to reconstruct any lost darlings, things like gold mods² can bite when you lose them. So, you can succumb to gear fear, never using any of your fun equipment until the last days of the season before the wipe, if that. Or...

Or you can embrace what I've come to call 'robber baron Buddhism,' a sort of carefree pseudo-nihilistic approach to the game. Easy come, easy go, kill people, die often. Play the game to have fun, not to amass a dragon's hoard of neat things you will never use. It's the difference between buying a valuable guitar to stare at it, and buying a valuable guitar because you love it and will play it.

Accordingly, some fun truisms have sprung up in my circle, which I find emblematic of our approach to the game:

• "Death is a form of motion."
• "It can only be so bad, and it's not even that bad."
• "It's tricky but it's not hard."
• "Inventory space is the absence of riches."

The game is not subtle about the importance of death in both the narrative and the gameplay loop, so why not embrace it? Don't play dumb, but don't play afraid, either.

Closing Thoughts

Marathon is special. Really special. It definitely hit at a good time for me - exhaustion with the sheer volume of 'solo' grinds in my life (fighting games, academics guitar) - and it's the most I've enjoyed a game in a very long time, maybe only matched by the moments where I felt like I really found the 'fire' in fighting games and with the aforementioned The Division launch. Something about it is enduring, visionary even, and missing it would be a shame.

There are still some small flaws, though. Meta-progression has two obvious and harsh hurdles, the first before you get blue shields (baseline for survivability in my experience), and the second as you're trying to round out endgame faction upgrades, which are rightfully difficult to achieve but probably a little too easy if you're farming high-value Cryo vaults and the Compiler (the 'final' 'raid boss,' at least for now), and a little too difficult otherwise. Though, if you're farming Cryo and Compiler, you've worked your ass off to get there, so I guess it's not unjustified. Uhhh, what else... Desynced enemy NPCs can be a little weird and aren't that rare, though you can just ignore them and connectivity for PvP encounters has always been flawless for me. I dunno, that's kinda it. It's telling that my few issues aren't dealbreakers, and are more oriented around meta-progression quibbles than mid-match play, I find.

For a brief time, Cryo was dominated by some bullshit, between sub-two-minute rushing into other teams' spawns, and a meta defined almost entirely by bubble shields and shotguns, which basically let people wiggle back and forth with shotguns behind temporary bulletproof (but player-passable) walls. If you didn't have weapons to match and couldn't make space in time, you'd just get run down without much recourse. Thankfully, though, these have both been fixed with adjustments to routing between spawns, and bubble shield rarity and grenade stack limit adjustments, respectively.

The biggest problem for me is the fact that a couple updates have drawn some clear gear-demarcated survivability lines, which I really don't like, since I find them to be against the game's spirit of correct play trumping reasonable gear differentials. The WSTR shotgun is the main tragedy here, functioning pre-nerf as a ridiculously high-lethality point-blank range weapon to offset the knife (really strong, in a good and fun way), and to punish lone players for ignoring the game's emphasis on maintaining key weapon ranges and angles by straying too close. However, post-nerf, the gun is outright incapable of instantly downing players with blue shields, even on back-to-back point-blank headshots, which defangs it significantly. I don't like that you can recognize someone's gun and, based solely on your shield tier, completely disrespect it in a binary fashion. Whatever, it's not the end of the world, I just think it's kinda stupid.

It's an audiovisual home run, it plays phenomenally, and it's a total blast to pick up with friends, either as a group of collective beginners or as starry-eyed newcomers trying to keep pace with a veteran or two. The world of Marathon (2026) is so compelling no matter how you approach it, and while you can never always avoid disaster, you also shouldn't want to. The catastrophes, the heartbreakers, and the I-don't-know-how-we-did-that miracles are where this game finds so much of its memorability, so just get in there and have at.

In my media tracker thingy, I've given it a 9.5. It's unforgettable. It's visionary. There's nothing else quite like it, in terms of presentation, gameplay, narrative, or the cohesive synergy of all of these things. And it's still evolving, with resets and free weeks offering great on-ramp moments and chances to try before you buy.

Credentials

Okay, to prove my words are at least coming from a place of experience with the game:

Footnotes