Marathon has plenty of potential, most of it unrealized

I've tried to love Marathon for weeks now, and there is a lot that's worthy of that affection.

The world is a moody and genuinely compelling place full of places to discover and marvel. On every run, I find myself in wonder at the sheer scale of things. It's incredible to wander around a hallway of what you thought was a major building, only to realize it's a minor portion of a cockpit of what appears to be a land crawler. There's a melancholy sense of a world gone by that lingers in every aspect of Marathon, and it's the kind of post-apocalypse romanticism that I love.

Similarly, the gunplay is immaculate. After three decades, Bungie has developed a unique style that is distinctly theirs. It is immensely responsive, visceral, and rewarding. Every encounter packs a punch, every gun feels different. On a purely mechanical level, Marathon represents a master developer at the height of their game.

And yet, for all the good things, I can't get into Marathon. I've tried, and tried, and tried, and each time it rejects me and I it.

The reasons are twofold: it is a deeply inhospitable experience that hides its intriguing story and lore behind convoluted mechanics, and it's an accessibility nightmare that I can't navigate.

Marathon is an extraction shooter, which by definition means it's all about survival. Unlike other games in the genre, it emphasizes the ruthlessness by rewarding kills of any type. Take out a player and still fail your run? Doesn't matter; you get XP anyway. And since you can get free sponsored kits, you could, in theory, just run and gun your way into every scenario.

That means everyone you meet in-game is a threat. During my numerous runs into the world of Marathon, I've yet to see anyone interact with others. It's always nothing but ambushes and instant deaths. If you're playing with friends, and you really need to, you can probably handle the constant danger.

But, if you're like me, and you don't have an active friends group that plays live-service titles often, you're stuck with randos. Solo runs aren't encouraged, though they're possible with the Rook character class, and there's no offline mode. It's you against the world.

The maps are surprisingly small, as Marathon emphasizes shorter bursts of exploration with 15 to 20 minute bursts per round. Sadly, this means that those who dedicate all their time to the game now spend all their energy in griefing others. During my runs, I've constantly encountered campers at known spawn points and important quest markers. Even if you try to sneak around avoiding combat, it's more likely you'll be ambushed by a team of folks just looking to pick a fight.

That's the eternal dilemma with the extraction shooter genre. Which type of gameplay is right? There's no right answer, but a good solution is to balance out the gameplay to reward both approaches. Marathon, at present, rewards hostility, and it makes the overall experience less fun.

Part of that is probably due to the lack of meaningful content. There are only three maps, plus the just-added Cryo Archive, which is bafflingly time-gated to weekends, and you'll experience the core gameplay loop within two sessions.

Missions, likewise, are a frustrating blend of fetch quests and finding beacons that require you to stand around and wait while an arbitrary loading bar ticks away. Enemy NPCs are a constant hassle, and when things get hectic, it's hard to distinguish between their types to see which ones are your average fodder and which are the super-powerful tanks that will wipe the floor with you.

Between runs, there's a variety of lore and an ephemeral sense of story. Most of this is exciting stuff and delivers on the quality that Bungie has showcased before in their Halo series. But you have to dig for it, and to do so, you have to brave the nightmare that is Marathon's UI.

Marathon is an accessibility nightmare. It is a miserable experience for neurodivergent gamers and those who are easily overwhelmed. During my time with it, I struggled every single time to make sense of the cluttered UI elements, the minuscule text prompts, and the looting mechanics where every item looks the same.

There are no dedicated accessibility features, though you can adjust colors and remap controls on both keyboard and controller. But by design, Marathon's retro aesthetic is garish and hard on the eyes. Navigating through the wireframe menus is a chore, and it easily overwhelms me with too much input.

Marathon also railroads the player into doing only one or two missions at a time. There's no way to progress at your own pace. So if you're stuck on a quest that is camped by griefers, you're just stuck there for however long they feel like picking on you. Adding to that are the terrible player and enemy skins, which are all interchangeable mush and hard to tell apart. At any point, a character you thought was an AI-controlled guard turns out to be a human player, and you're already dead before you can react.

In the opening tutorial, which is brief and unhelpful, Marathon instructs on knowing when to fight and hide. In the game itself, the latter option is rarely, if ever, available.

During my test period, some things improved. Item stacks in the menus grew to much more reasonable sizes, and in-game indicators are a bit easier to parse now. But these are bandages on gaping wounds, and Marathon requires a lot more to make itself playable for anyone but the most able-bodied gamer.

I want to love Marathon for the things it does right. I admire the mood and setting, and Bungie does gunplay better than anyone else out there. In fits and starts, it's a breathtaking experience. Especially when playing with friends.

But it's also an inhospitable game that feels like it doesn't want me here. Whether that's because of the UI design, the lack of onboarding, or the obtuse game design, Marathon is an experience you have to fight to enjoy. Which is not great, considering there are cheaper (and even free) alternatives.

Marathon is a live-service title, which means it will be different in the coming months and years – provided that it lives that long. Perhaps it will change drastically this summer, perhaps it won't. But I can only review what's there at the present, and right now any promise of potential is just a vague notion of a distant future.

If you're really into extraction shooters and you've gone through all the other major competitors, chances are you might love Marathon, too. But if you're a solo gamer or with friends available only occasionally, it's best to skip it for now. There are other worlds than this.