Marathon is a frustrating extraction game that I can’t stop playing — here’s my verdict after 81 hours on PS5
Marathon review: Specs
Platforms: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S
Price: $39, £34,$59 AU
Release date: March 5, 2026
Genre: FPS
Marathon is a game that highlights the best of Bungie, but also the worst. Whether this gives the shooter revival any staying power depends on how Bungie treats it going forward, but at launch, it is a sweaty, gorgeous rush that I keep returning to, despite its flaws.
Since the Server Slam in late February, ahead of the March 5 release, I’ve played Marathon nearly every night. Some of that was contractual in a push to see everything the game had to offer ahead of the Cryo Archive launch (a high-risk raid-style mode), but much of it was because I enjoy diving into the world of Tau Ceti.
Marathon is a game with thrilling highs and frustrating lows. Extracting with a sliver of life left, as enemies, both AI and human-controlled, try to knock you out, is a heart-stopping experience. Getting wiped while trying to fulfill one of the corpo contracts for the seventh time in a row is… not controller throwing enraging but definitely full of that tightly whispered, “This is garbage…” tension.
Marathon is a game that explicitly tells you not to make friends and then makes sure you get the point by repeatedly killing you. And yet, I can’t stop playing.
Marathon: The Basics
- What is it? Marathon revives Bungie’s long-dormant FPS franchise in the form of a sci-fi extraction shooter. It features classic Bungie gunplay and genre trademarks like PvPvE matches with a focus on looting.
- Who is it for? Bungie fans, if only for the gunplay. Hardcore players should also enjoy the loot and extract loop, plus the endgame content. There is something for casual runners, too.
- What’s the price? The standard edition costs $39.99. A $59.99 Deluxe edition adds several cosmetics and some digital rewards.
- What other games has the developer made? Bungie is most famous as the studio behind the first five Halo games. The studio also made Destiny and Destiny 2.
- What games is this similar to? As an extraction shooter, it most readily compares to ARC Raiders and Escape from Tarkov, slotting closer to Tarkov on the difficulty scale.
Getting out alive
If you have played any Bungie game over the last 25 years, you will feel comfortable picking up Marathon. The gunplay is excellent and features a breadth of weapons that all feel and react differently.
Like Destiny, Marathon’s weapons have their own style, and through cosmetics, you can find a paint scheme and stickers that make it your own. I’m leaning into the neon skins when I find them.
Marathon is sweaty, but it’s not because you can 360 noscope an angry preteen across the map. You need skill to hit headshots, take the high ground, and use your shell abilities. But it doesn’t require flash-clicking to get good. Timing, positioning and perception all matter.
I’ve seen some early complaints online about short ITK (time to kill), but I’ve found death typically only comes quickly when you get caught out. Yes, sprinting across the map to complete an objective only to get sniped by a player squatting in a ruined building is supremely frustrating.
Fortunately, getting into matches is pretty quick, whether you’re running solo or in a team of three players. And between loot upgrades and shield/health replenishes tense gunfights with other players or even the UESC NPC enemies can last several minutes.
Stylish and colorful
Marathon is stylish and a joy to look at. In a world where players are synthetically built “runners” in shells taking on robots, glowing ticks and other runners, Bungie opted for a colorful, cyberpunk-ish aesthetic awash in a variety of pastels, neon, lush vegetation and sci-fi camp. It is a joy to wander the maps.
The currently available maps of Perimeter, Dire Marsh and Outpost all feel different from each other while being small enough that repeated runs help you learn the lay of the land fairly quickly.
From the world of Tau Ceti to the ruins of the Marathon colony, it’s legitimately fun to stop and take in the graffiti or strange plant life pulsing in the background.
Where it fails is in the menus, which, at first blush, are annoying to navigate. I’ve gotten used to it through brute force, but it’s not a smooth experience to bounce around setting up your backpack or clearing out your vault because you have too much loot, which still feels sacrilegious in a loot-grabbing game.
Someone’s got to do it
At face value, Marathon is a story about the gig-economy as you reverse DoorDash your way through Tau Ceti, stealing various detritus for faceless AI-controlled corporations millions of miles away from the actual work.
There are three ways to experience the story of Marathon. The most obvious is dropping into Tau Ceti and taking in the context clues spread throughout the planet. Anti-UESC graffiti, strange murals depicting aliens, the anomaly in Dire Marsh and more hint at the story of a colony driven mad by internal and external forces.
The other way to dive into the story is to complete the contracts that give you the bulk of your goals in the game. Completing contracts for each of the six Factions — five corporations and one “cyberhacker” group — ends with short cutscenes that explain the motivations of each faction. My favorite is one run by a worm that whispers sweet lies while sending you into the hardest areas and most time-consuming contracts.
Finally, like Destiny, completing challenges, contracts, and various stat-counting feats and collecting items on Tau Ceti unlocks lore logs that you can read in the menus. Unfortunately, Bungie chose a 1980s phosphor screen font for these lore cards, and I hate reading it. Fortunately, some of the lore is voice-acted, but much of it is not. For the first time ever, I wish Bungie had released a companion app as it did for Destiny, where you can easily read the lore you’ve unlocked.
Finding the endgame
Bungie requested outlets wait to review Marathon until Cryo Archive, the game’s main endgame content. There’s also a ranked mode, but as of writing, ranked is just playing the game with slightly higher stakes. It doesn’t work when free kits can take out fully-kitted out groups in seconds; it needs some work.
Cryo Archive is the toughest mode in the game. Unlike the other maps, where you could avoid PVP if you wanted, Cryo Archive’s setup demands it. You have to collect security keycards to get through the various vaults and security clearances before you can face the Compiler, the Archive’s boss. These cards can only be found on other players.
It is punishingly difficult and requires a coordinated approach. You could probably pull a couple of randoms and get through it if all three know what they’re doing. I managed to run it a couple of times, but I’ve yet to see the actual end. If you’re like me, coming from Destiny, it will remind you of some of the hardest raids in either version of it.
That all said, I don’t think you need to play Cryo Archive unless you’re at the highest levels of the game. If you are, then it’s a mode for you. The game is excellent even if you can’t make it out of orbit.
Which leads to the question of Marathon’s future. Bungie has promised that Marathon will run on a seasonal schedule that resets before every season. I’m not sure how this will work yet, and it will determine if the game has staying power as players burn out on the four launch maps.
Season 2 is supposed to bring a new map and a new runner shell; hopefully, this new content and any future tweaks are enough to keep the game engaging long-term.
Marathon review: verdict
Marathon is the only extraction shooter that I am interested in playing right now. Dropping into a match is relatively quick, such that failing a run doesn’t feel overly punishing.
The classic Bungie gunplay makes fighting UESC bots and other players a joy coupled with modern movement and the colorful world of Tau Ceti makes for an experience I can honestly say is delightful.
There are flaws outside matches in the confusing menu and painful font choices. Having to rerun over and over again to hit a specific contract can be deflating. However, I think of the highs of Marathon the way golfers explain why they continue to hit the links. Hitting that perfect shot or even a rare hole-in-one more than makes up for all the times you slammed your club into the ground trying to get out of a sand bunker.
Marathon is the same way. Surviving a tense firefight to exfil with a bag full of loot or even quietly surviving the map without being caught are standout experiences, especially when sandwiched between runs where your shells were summarily dispatched to rot in the mud.
Source link
