Marathon 2025 - Bungie's new AAAA Extraction shooter

Civillian 18 said:
It was also a phrase found in all of the glazing articles that were springing up not just for Marathon, but Highguard and Concord (and certainly others I am sure). Along with 'it just clicked', 'return to form', 'bottled lightning' etc
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That's a good observation. Honestly every single positive review and youtube video is essentially:

"It's a return to form and once it clicked I was having a blast, Marathon is lightning in a bottle."
 
creaturestorm said:
Jeff Kaplan talks about how something like this happened to blizzard. They spent 83 million dollars (140ish in todays economy) to make a game that never released.

They had issues where people would sit around all day doing absolutely nothing and more often than not what work they were doing was immediately scrapped and thrown in the trash.

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Same for Bioware, for example. It's a common problem with large studios, that's why I'm not taking "AAA" serious anymore and haven't for at least a decade. They grow too big for their own good, falling victim to bloat and mismanagement.
Bioware... Blizzard... Bungie? Is it just a coincidence they all have names starting with "B"?

Anyway, I'm having a blast in this thread.
 
Jace on ice said:
We're at around 18-20k concurrent now. How bad does this get before it goes f2p or shuts down?
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I really think there is at least one total desperation move in store before they abandon the game. Like FF a realm reborn, but probably more like Anthem.


Astro Galactic Megalul said:
Anyway, I'm having a blast in this thread.
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After a few hundred posts here it finally clicked for me.
 
Jace on ice said:
Yea but Square Enix delisted the original version and built it up from the ground to make it not dogshit. Ain't no way Sony is going to greenlight dev funds and time for an overhaul after blowing 4+ billion.
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They also came out and publicly apologized to fans for how bad FF14 was on launch and promised to do better.


Bungie would never fucking do this, even when they apologize it's always half-assed, through a blog or a vidoc and comes off as them grudgingly apologizing for players not understanding the vision
 
Jace on ice said:
Yea but Square Enix delisted the original version and built it up from the ground to make it not dogshit. Ain't no way Sony is going to greenlight dev funds and time for an overhaul after blowing 4+ billion.
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I’m not optimistic that a rebuild would actually turn this into something I’d want to play, let alone some one else, but from a business standpoint, the hardest work is already done.

The tech, assets, systems, and years of development investment are already in place. If bungie can’t carve a decent experience out of what already exists, it’s hard to believe starting from zero would somehow lead to a better out come.

I would think a rebuild is the lower risk path for them. It’s faster to iterate on what exists than to spend several hundred million and years building something new with no guarantee it lands. What could they possibly make next? Oni, Myth, Pathways into darkness? They'd probably have to introduce an entirely new IP at this point, which is expensive and risky in it of itself. With Marathon at least there is existing brand awareness, however mixed, there is at least some momentum to build on since it already has a fan base.

Scrapping everything resets all of that. Time, money, and visibility. Letting the studio move onto a new project would just introduce on more risk.

Though maybe Sony truly doesn't give a fuck and will close the studio completely if they were thinking they bought the golden goose only to find out it's the opposite. Maybe they were never in it for the games they were making and isn't interested in investing in that any further.

It's just hard for me to believe some one would spend 4 billion dollars on something that basically amounts to a consultancy on running live service games.

Professor Donger said:
They also came out and publicly apologized to fans for how bad FF14 was on launch and promised to do better.
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That guy looks like he's just steps away from committing seppuku.
 
creaturestorm said:
I really think there is at least one total desperation move in store before they abandon the game. Like FF a realm reborn, but probably more like Anthem.



After a few hundred posts here it finally clicked for me.
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What would this look like? I could see maybe less grind, improved onboarding and a PVE mode could move the needle but there also seems to be a content drought. There are 4 maps and technically 3 if you arent into loot grinding and cant play on the weekends. Season 2 not even going to add a map which to me should be a bare minimum for a seasonal update.

Im thinking they cant generate enough content to get new players interested. I dont think they can whip anything up in time for season 2 so maybe for season 3 at which point we are in Fall and who knows what new game is coming out.

They seem to be in a really bad spot
 
creaturestorm said:
Jeff Kaplan talks about how something like this happened to blizzard. They spent 83 million dollars (140ish in todays economy) to make a game that never released.

They had issues where people would sit around all day doing absolutely nothing and more often than not what work they were doing was immediately scrapped and thrown in the trash.

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That's not entirely correct, though. They didn't throw Project Titan into the trash - they took the existing assets (characters, lore, maps, design, and so on) and pivoted the game into a Team Based Shooter, which was Overwatch, which was very successful and made that money back and more - even if the game is in a Meme state today.

Project Titan was supposed to be part Overwatch, part MMO, and part slice-of-life, but in trying to develop the MMO and slice-of-life parts of the game decided they didn't really work and just leaned into the Overwatch part - which is why "Titan" was cancelled.

Starcraft : Ghost is another one, where in the game didn't materialize (and was a side project of a substudio) but the character/lore/assets/etc were just rolled into Starcraft 2's Campaign and/or extra modes.

It was a neat idea in theory - but the actual practice of having to try and balance around a powerful character in a drastically unfamiliar setting - coupled with the fact that "character action" is not something people like in Starcraft (with single-unit/no base missions being the least popular by far) - it was a good idea to stop it if nothing good was coming from it.

I love shitting on Blizzard - but them having the sense to see something isn't working and refocus is a good thing that a lot of studios need to do better (like Bungie, ironicaly). A game like Highguard gets to where it is by ignoring the feedback of 'is this actually fun' and just pushing through to the end.
 
Voop said:
This kinda reminds me of those people getting lawbreaker tattoos on their wrists
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Every time lawbreakers comes up I'm reminded of the time I was working for a small indie art studio and we got contracted to build lawbreakers earrings and keychains for the entire staff working on the game, to celebrate the release.

They were pretty cool lil laser cut aluminum trinkets, in the form of the game's logo.

I got to meet Cliff Blezinski when we made the delivery and my boss repeatedly told me "For the love of God, don't call him "CliffyB"

Too bad the game sucked
 
Tanner Glass said:
That's not entirely correct, though. They didn't throw Project Titan into the trash
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In the interview, he explains there was no clear foundation for the project. There was no “Titan bible,” no design guide, no real documentation, and no shared vision of what they were making. Each person had their own interpretation, staff weren’t aligned on what the game was supposed to be and so when they weren’t waiting for their turn to work, artists and other contributors created things that didn’t fit the project’s scope or direction, and much of it was never planned for use. The result was a lot of wasted effort and material.

Titan was in development for 7 years.

Overwatch was in development for another 3.

Overwatch 2 was in development for 5 years.

It's fair to say much of what was produced for Titan was sent to the scrap heap never be used or even planned to be used.
wholetthegodsout said:
What would this look like? I could see maybe less grind, improved onboarding and a PVE mode could move the needle but there also seems to be a content drought. There are 4 maps and technically 3 if you arent into loot grinding and cant play on the weekends. Season 2 not even going to add a map which to me should be a bare minimum for a seasonal update.
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I don’t have a good read on this at all, i imagine its going to be something out of left field.

At some point if they don't pull the plug on it they’re likely going to cave to the demand for a single player or PvE experience with story content. People have been crying for it non stop. They also already have a lot of existing assets and systems they could potentially repurpose from Destiny.

The problem is that if they lean too heavily on that, Destiny players will immediately recognize it as a downgraded or repackaged version of something they’ve already seen, and won't take the bait.

What ever happens I’d expect it to end up being pretty unexpected and not neatly aligned with what people are currently imagining.

Who knows, maybe they just go f2p before unplugging it. It's a strange place to be as a live service game.
 
Someone has shitposted an edit of one of the Marathon trailers and it has hit the 'top' section with 1500+ upvotes. Replacing the music that the Assassin shell is listening to with Scatman. I know it is not fair to expect redditors to actually watch the media they are commenting on before singing the praises of the game/trailer, but it is funny.
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Like this dude starts quoting the original song verse and how powerful it is, to the OP of the shitpost, who is winkwinknudgenudging pretty hard. :story:
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creaturestorm said:
That's a good observation. Honestly every single positive review and youtube video is essentially:

"It's a return to form and once it clicked I was having a blast, Marathon is lightning in a bottle."
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I'm enjoying the dark creaturestorm saga.

You mentioned the lore being a bad fit a couple pages back. How do you get that lore, out of curiosity? I’m assuming missions and their descriptions are the general source, but you’ve mentioned multiple times the idea the few explorers actually searching through it have all found different deeper subplots. Is it just files, files with pictures, audio logs? Do you pick them up from the map? Is there loot drops with lore descriptions à la dark souls that you need to exfil with, or does just finding the lore save it to some internal documentation files? Or do you just have to read it in the game itself (or maybe more sensibly screenshot it to read later)?
 
creaturestorm said:
I really think there is at least one total desperation move in store before they abandon the game. Like FF a realm reborn, but probably more like Anthem.
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Impossible. Sony is not going to want to invest more money into concord 3. The only reason the game is still up is that bungie built the server stuff themselves so it isn't costing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands a month
Tanner Glass said:
but them having the sense to see something isn't working and refocus is a good thing that a lot of studios need to do better
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Those days are gone if you look at D4
 
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