The world of Marathon is too good for an extraction shooter

Domagoj Belancic

10.3.2026

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Pictures: Domagoj Belancic

Bungie’s new online shooter Marathon looks breathtaking. Making it all the more frustrating that I can’t explore its world in a single-player campaign.

A storm is raging on the planet Tau Ceti IV. Heavy rain lashes against neon-coloured buildings that look like foreign structures in the barren alien landscape. Lightning strikes to my left and right, illuminating the post-apocalyptic scenery.

I pause for a moment – wow, this looks awesome.

Despite the adverse conditions, I continue to fight my way through the storm. My mission: to hack a terminal in a top-secret laboratory. My ammunition supply’s already severely depleted and my armour is battered. I hear shots and explosions in the distance, something I want to avoid at all costs.

I reach the research lab, finding ammo for my shotgun in a chest. And lucky that, because three murderous killer robots are guarding the terminal. I spring an ambush, using my special ability to electrify the tin skins and calmly shoot them to bits. When the work is done, I hack the terminal and download important information.

Success! Now to quickly find an extraction point and escape safely from the planet.

But I don’t want to leave yet. Because as soon as I complete the mission, I’m torn from this wonderful dream and wake up in dreary live service reality.

Marathon presents me with a strange dilemma: I love its content, but I don’t want to experience it in the limiting corset of an online multiplayer game.

Cool Story, Bro

The story premise of Marathon immediately grabs me. There was once a human colony on the distant planet Tau Ceti IV. Today, only ruins and patrolling security robots bear witness to this. I slip into the shoes of a Runner who loads his consciousness into a cybernetic shell to explore the planet.

My goal is to recover valuable resources and secure information about the colony’s demise. It’s unclear exactly what happened on Tau Ceti IV. Clues point to alien attacks and internal human conflicts. Maybe there’s rogue AI to blame too – as in the original Marathon trilogy from the nineties.

I love these kinds of mysteries. So it pains me all the more that I can’t uncover these secrets in a single-player campaign. Instead, Marathon serves up the plot in story snippets and loveless lore dumps between short multiplayer sessions.

Marathon is an extraction shooter. In other words: for every multiplayer match, my aim is to collect as much valuable loot as possible across a map. If I die, I lose everything. If I escape the planet safely, I keep it all. Between runs (the term used for excursions to Tau Ceti IV), various rival factions contact me with different missions. Some want me to steal valuable data during my next run, others want me to destroy equipment.

I’m also rewarded (far too rarely) with information about the background story.

As a live service title, Marathon aims to keep me glued to my controller for as long as possible. Naturally, I’m only supplied with snippets of information. After all, Bungie needs to tell the story over months or even years.

I get the situation we’re in, yet I can’t help but fantasise about a theoretical story campaign.

Just imagine: this thrilling background story, told as a perfectly paced, narrative-driven single-player campaign. I can’t help but think of titles like Metroid Prime. Isolated on an alien planet full of critters and robots that want to kill me, I uncover what happened step by step through hidden clues. Unshackled from twenty-minute runs and loveless lore dumps presented to me as walls of text in menus. Instead, I can discover notes from survivors at my own pace, listen to audio logs, solve puzzles and fight killer robots.

Oh, it could be so beautiful.

Much too beautiful for multiplayer

In addition to the story, I’m also struck by how incredibly cool the game world looks. Bungie’s created a visual sci-fi masterpiece here – far too beautiful to be wasted on a live-service title.

I particularly like the way the game plays with lighting and colours. The alien worlds are bathed in an obviously unearthly light. Just take a look at this green shimmer in the Dire Marsh map. Absolute Cinema.

Indoors, neon lamps lend the scenery a surreal atmosphere. I can’t emphasise enough how awesome it looks on my 83-inch OLED TV.

Even smaller details are impressive – enemies that have been shot leave a distinctive blue trail of blood as they crawl for cover. Makes sense: after all, they’re only cybernetic shells and not real people made of flesh and (red) blood.

Buildings, containers and cables set exciting contrasts with bright, oversaturated colours, which I can use to get around. This sets Marathon apart from the usual shooter and sci-fi monotony, crafting a unique atmosphere.

The soundtrack knocks my socks off too. An unearthly soundscape of menacing bass, piercing synths and disturbing vocals.

It feels different to anything I’ve heard in game soundtracks before.

I’d give anything to immerse myself in this unique sci-fi world alone. The visual language of the game – striking contrasts, bright colours – screams out for a world packed with secrets. Everything looks so incredibly exciting. What lies hidden in this strikingly bright building? What’s that hovering red thing over the marshland? What awaits me at the end of this ominously lit corridor?

How I’d love to answer all these questions on my own and soak up the atmosphere of this colourful sci-fi universe. Without annoying players bouncing around like ping-pong balls, teabagging fallen enemies and screaming in my ear. Without having to fight my way through annoying live service menus after every run, which take me out of the experience. Without time limits. Just me and the game world. Just me and Tau Ceti IV.

Hope for the future

I pray to the live service gods that Marathon becomes a success. Maybe Bungie will recognise the immense potential of this universe and give us more single-player games that make full use of it.

Admittedly, this is highly unlikely. After all, Bungie’s synonymous with live-service games now. Still, I can dare to dream. Just as mankind once dreamed of a new beginning on Tau Ceti IV. Until then, I’ll continue to struggle through short multiplayer matches and confusing menus. All in the hope that one day Bungie will realise how much more there is to this world.

Domagoj Belancic

Senior Editor

Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.ch

My love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.

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