My Critique of Marathon (for the blueberries)

I can give you some of my critique of the game and really Bungie as a whole.

1. Animations and perks are ripped straight from destiny and as a player since the D1 alpha you notice the similarities very quickly.

2. The fact that we've once again been given the hero trope for a game partially kills it for me, I wanted to be able to create my own character and choose my own abilities, hero shooters are so overdone that it's exhausting that we continue to see them in 2026.

3. The games art style and colour pallet don't vibe with everyone, for me it is a little too bright and I literally cannot play the game on my qd-oled monitor, it's so bright even after amending settings that it's borderline unplayable.

4. Many of us fans of the original marathon trilogy are disappointed that this IP was used for a live service extraction shooter when it could have been a brilliant offline single player shooter by Bungie with a multiplayer mode on the side.

5. As a long time destiny player I see the rose tinted glasses of the emerging marathon (2026) community because they are unaware of Bungie and their frankly predatory monetization practices in full priced game, the lies, taking content away and how the Bungie of today is NOT the bungie that made halo up until reach. As a destiny player it is very hard to continue putting any trust in Bungie when they have all but abandoned their main franchise for a short term investment such as an extraction shooter (not saying I don't like extraction shooters, I really like them) but Bungie didn't need to be the company to make another one.

6. The games UI is extremely convoluted and messy, if you don't believe me please look at a game like persona 3 Reload, that is a masterclass in video game UI.

7. This one has no logic behind it but the game to me has a free to play feel to it's game-play. It feels clunky and slow while the TTK is blinding fast.

8. CHEATERS!!!!! I've already seen gameplay of hackers in Marathon before the game has even released. If you know ANYTHING about Bungie you know they are utterly negligent when it comes to cheaters and in destiny which is in it's majority a PVE game this is still terrible but imagine losing multiple end game items to a cheater in Marathon. If you know anything about BattleEye anti-cheat then you know that it is very easy for hackers to bypass despite what bungie says.

Overall many of us have been fk*d over by Bungie for so long to the point where we thought it was activisions fault that destiny was in a terrible place but once they left bungie doubled down on the predatory Monetization. I think many people are just done with bungie as a game developer, they are a shell of their former glory.