Friday, April 25, 2025

Marathon 1st impression notes from playing on Xbox for a couple hours

- Early game movement feels sluggish and the overheat system is bad

- Matchmaking with people trying to complete different goals

- Matchmaking with people that have much better gear make me feel like dead weight

- Most likely on purpose but too difficult to differentiate players from AI

- I don't have a ton of extraction looter shooter experience but I'm not seeing any innovation

- I feel there isn't variety is playlists compared to the variety in player skill/experience.

- As a long time Bungie games player, (Oni, Halo, Destiny) I feels like I'm not experiencing the "Bungie creative magic" that I saw in their previous titles. It's like the transition between what is seen in the cinematics/trailers does not translate well into gameplay.

I'm not sure which space Marathon is trying to occupy and why Bungie chose to enter a genre that feels so removed from what they've made so far. At the same time I do think they have the creative minds to make something great, this is not a convincing example so far if you're new to Bungie.