The Good And Bad Of The ‘Marathon’ Alpha, So Far

Bungie reversed course on its idea that it would make tens of thousands of players sign an NDA not to record, stream or even talk about its Marathon Closed Alpha, and now I am able to do things like say, write this article about the game’s strengths and weaknesses, as I see them, from this initial run at the game. But first, two disclaimers. 1) I am not an extraction shooter player. If you do not want to listen to anything I’m saying here because of that, that’s totally fine. But I am going to try to keep my take on the genre out of this and not say things like “it’s bad you lose all your loot, it should not do that.” I get it, it’s a different genre. 2) This is an Alpha, things will change. But we can only judge based on what we’re playing here and we do not know exactly what will change. More things will be added, so I won’t complain about a limited gun pool, for instance, but other things, we just don’t know. So, let’s go:

The Interiors

I will get to the exteriors later, as it may not surprise you that those are in a different category. But the interiors is the one aspect of Marathon that I think has fully lived up to the art direction in the marketing, and some of these spaces are deeply cool. I love finding new ones, and in general, I really do like the expansive color palette which significantly stands out in the multiplayer space.

Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase UESC Bots

Killing bots is a fun dynamic, especially when they are more than purely fodder and can ruin your day if you don’t pay attention to thinning their ranks. This can turn into truly PvPvE when they show up during a teamfight.

Void Invisible Assassination

I’ve really enjoyed playing as Void so far and my favorite thing to do is stealth and go around knifing people or bots with an actually viable melee strategy. My favorite moment of the Alpha so far was getting in a harrowing knife fight with a UESC Commander which, surprisingly, I won.

The Hook?

Ultimately I’m not really sure why I’d play Marathon specifically over other multiplayer games. I was hoping Bungie would break out and do something hugely different with the genre, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, at least right now. It feels mainly like a more “mainstream” extraction shooter mainly trying to appeal to console players where that is close to a non-existent market. But after the massive franchises of Destiny and Halo, this feels like it’s missing the Bungie of it all.

Average Experience

I’m still playing, I will keep playing, and these thoughts will change in time. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Bluesky Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.