A new report has stated that Bungie’s Marathon has changed direction somewhat since Joe Ziegler took the reigns nine months ago. According to IGN, Marathon will now have a selectable cast of heroes rather than custom player characters.
In late 2022, Insider Gaming exclusively broke the story that Bungie was reviving the Marathon series with an extraction shooter. In mid-2023, we broke the news of Marathon’s gameplay loop and what the game entails.
In short, the core gameplay loop of Marathon is as follows:
- Chose your missions (to complete in the game)
- Buy / Chose your loadout/perks/abilities/gear
- Drop into a server
- Hunt for loot / Complete missions / Explore and find secrets
- Extract
- Spend XP on Updates
- Repeat
The new report from IGN implies that the game’s direction has shifted a little since these reports, including the change that will move away from custom player characters in favor of a selectable cast of heroes. This means that Marathon will fall in a similar vein to Apex Legends or Warzone, where players can only pick from a select pool of customization options per character. Presumably, the decision has been made to increase its live-service monetization potential.
As expected, the community are not happy following the news, with many expressing their frustration online.
Content creator Westie said, “Yeah well my enthusiasm has moved away from Marathon now in favour of games that don’t have “hero” characters”, with content creator Stodeh following up with, “Guys it’s alright, here’s a list of recent hero shooters that did well: – – – -“.
What do you think of Marathon having heroes? Let us know in the comments.
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