Archived article: https://archive.md/HONwC
They’ll release one more update (my guess is whatever release-ready content they’ve already got), then the servers will shut down next Thursday.
“We don’t need player counts to be super huge in order to be successful” is starting to ring hollow.
Marathon next? Place your bets ladies and gentlemen!
Marathon is probably life or death for Bungie. Sony can’t exactly afford to put out a mid game after spending so much on the studio… and “mid” is exactly what Marathon felt like. Just like so many copycats during the battle royale boom.
I don’t think it will fail (or if it does, not as hard as Highguard), but unless it manages to stand out from the Tarkov/Arc Raiders/Hunt: Showdown oligopoly, it won’t bring in the numbers to please Sony.
Mid is exactly how I have seen Marathon described by the server slam feedback. People vasalating between whether or not they like it immediately after starting to play it is not a great look.
I was expecting mid/boring but quite enjoyed it. Not normally an extraction shooters player, though, so we’ll see how it fairs with the target audience.
To be honest at this point toppling Embark Studios is pretty tough in my book. The games they make have the same feeling of passion that Bungie used to have. Great gun play, fantastic audio design and interesting ideas. I really hope for the best for Marathon, if for no other reason than competition drives creativity, but Bungie has had the soul sucked out of them unfortunately.
Marathon seems pretty good imo, it’s problem is it’s trying to be a more hardcore extraction shooter than the ones that already exist which is gonna make it too niche to sustain a large US-based studio like Bungie.
DOA is my guess but they’ll probably prop it up for a month or so.
Given how boring it is to watch others play it, I don’t think it will see any huge success. It will probably find a loyal fanbase, but probably not enough to sustain it long term.
I’m not interested either way, but my money says it’ll do okay