There’s an awful lot of schadenfreude in the video game industry at the moment. Players have long been skeptical of live-service titles, and one only needs to take a peek at Highguard to see just how bizarre the culture has become, as some beg for a title to fail.
Whether it wanted to or not, developer Bungie certainly got that ball rolling with the original Destiny and its lofty (if somewhat misguided) plan for a decade of support. Destiny 2 followed not long after, but Marathon marks the studio’s first non-Destiny game since Halo: Reach in 2010. It’s also a return to a franchise not seen since 1996, yet another live-service title, a punishing extraction shooter, and the first game to come out since the studio’s acquisition by Sony.
