video game reviews
I think playing a marathon is a lot like running a marathon. At first glance and from a distance, it looks intimidating. Once you get up close, you’ll realize there’s a reason it looks that way. However, when I start working on it, I notice something else. Despite the self-inflicted pain along the way, it was worth the effort.
Marathon, the latest game from Bellevue-based developer/publisher Bungie, is a bit of a hometown game for the studio best known for developing the Halo and Destiny franchises. Back in the mid-1990s, the company released the original Marathon and its two sequels for the Classic Mac OS. Set in the far future, players take control of a security guard aboard the colony ship UESC Marathon as they deal with the off-track situations of space travel, including alien invasions and rogue artificial intelligence. Mechanically, it was a typical first-person shooter. Explore the ship, shoot those who get in your way, and read, rinse, and repeat the interesting lore stored in the local terminal.
The 2026 version of Marathon is set in the same world in 2893, 99 years after the events of the first game, but it shares some of the same DNA. But this isn’t any old marathon. Because the latest installment in this decades-old series is a player-versus-player extraction shooter, one of the toughest genres in gaming.
The gameplay loop is very simple. you are a runner Living on the distant planet Tau IV Cetus, humans decide that having a living body isn’t as cool as having a cybernetic body into which you can implant your consciousness. There are colonies all over the planet, where you can find all kinds of delicious things. You choose a runner shell (Marathon’s version of the class system that determines the abilities your character has) and equip it. You load up the map, loot it, shoot it (at other players and AI bots), use the loot to find an extraction point (which allows you to escape the map), and hopefully start over again with better equipment.
But here’s the problem. If you get shot instead, you lose everything – including any equipment you had. In fact, if you don’t extract, you don’t get anything. You are just a piñata of loot to other players. It’s brutal, demoralizing, and makes you question why you launched the game in the first place. But when do you succeed? What happened when you were able to escape safely after a thrilling gunfight? When you find high-level loot or complete a difficult mission? There’s a feeling of exhilaration that you don’t get easily in other games, and it makes up for the heartbreak you often experience from losing gear.
That’s just one of the reasons I don’t want to get attached to my gear. Each marathon season lasts three months (there is no actual “end” to a marathon). At the end of that period, Marathon will reset all players’ gear and faction progress, as well as character levels and more. (Cosmetics and achievements are retained.) The goal is to keep players on a level playing field and refresh the game, but the thought of losing everything you worked hard for leaves a bitter taste.
Being a Bungie game, I expected best-in-class gunplay like Destiny, and Marathon delivered. Each weapon feels heavy and valuable, even if some are clearly better than others. (Combat Shotgun, looking over here.) The weapon is so sophisticated and effective that it actually poses a bit of a problem. Gunfights rarely last more than a few seconds. Whoever gets the drop first (or has a better shield) will often win. Therefore, it is incumbent on you to pay attention, listen to your surroundings and take your time. Shooting guns and running away is rarely the right thing to do, especially if you’re playing solo. (This game is built for teams of three, and we highly recommend teaming up with a friend or playing the game against other players. The game is much less punishing when you have the world against you.)
Narratively, Marathon is a bit surprising. Extraction Shooter games don’t have a lot of stories, but this one is a rare exception. I was captivated by the plot-heavy cutscenes, and I ended up spending hours diving into the deeply unsettling, yet extremely fascinating pieces of lore, wanting to learn everything I could about this universe and its people. I really enjoyed seeing how the 2026 Marathon ties into the 1994 Marathon and what that means going forward.
Visually, Marathon might be one of the most stylish games I’ve ever played. Adopting bright neon colors and deep shadows, intense. It’s an aesthetic that both unsettles and mesmerizes, like a box of crayons exploding on top of a horror movie. And that adds to the anxiety of Tau Cetus IV, a beautiful yet frightening environment that begs to be explored. (Related: Marathon launches with three playable maps, with the fourth map (Endgame Zone known as Cryo Archive) released on March 20th.)
A few complaints: For those new to extraction shooters (or FPS games in general), Marathon doesn’t do much to introduce you to how they work. They just throw you in the deep end and say, “Good luck!” And the console’s menus and user interface are shockingly awful, clunky, and unintuitive.
After all, marathons aren’t a great game for everyone. Unforgiving in nature and quick to punish small mistakes. But success, as rare as it may feel, is euphoric. If you’re willing to put in the time, you’ll reap the rewards, just like a real marathon. Just don’t expect these rewards to come easily.
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