All Episodes

April 14, 2025 • 18 mins
we're taking a look at an article by kotoku about marathon bungie's upcoming extraction shooter.


Article- Marathon Sounds Like A More Approachable Take On A Brutal Genre
twitch- colorlessmoon65 - Twitch
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome gamers and everybody else. Now, I know we haven't
posted our podcast in a little bit. That's because we've
been doing a little bit of experimenting over here, live
streaming and everything going on. We want to kind of
get back to our roots here as we just talk
about some gaming news, and the best way to do
that is just to kind of go through an article

(00:24):
and talk about it, give my opinions on it. And
of course, if we're not going back to our roots,
unless we're talking about Bungee's upcoming game Parrathon, which is
their next upcoming extraction shooter, I know like we need
another one of those. I know I'm kind of cynical
about this already, and so we're actually gonna be going

(00:45):
through Ko Taku's article. Marathon sounds like a way more
approachable take on a brutal genre. Now, first of all,
that headline, that headline is trying to make the game
sound very approachable for the most part, I think that's
what Bunge's trying to do. Now, if you don't know
anything about extraction shooters, let me give you a brief

(01:07):
little history something quick. But before that, if you like
our content, if you want to see more of our content,
or just want to support us in any way, go
ahead and give us a follow, give us an interaction,
depending on what platform you are, whether that be a
review on our audios audio podcast, whether that be a like, subscribe, follow,

(01:29):
whatever it's called, on whatever platform you're on. It helps
us a lot and lets us know that we're on
the right track. And this is stuff that you want
to see. Now, let's get into it. First of all,
let's talk about what an extraction shooter is. What an
extraction shooter is basically is you go into a map
to complete an objective, and once that objective is completed,

(01:50):
you try to get out. The best example of this,
of course, is Escape from Tarkov. You go in, you
pick up equipment, you complete your quest, and you move
to an extraction point. If you die during the mission,
you lose your stuff. And that's where this brutality comes

(02:10):
in that they're kind of talking about in this article.
Extraction shooters are brutal because it's all or nothing. You
either get your supplies or you get nothing. And a
lot of extraction shooters they are PvP based, so there's
a certain amount of luck. Player skill has a lot
to do with it, so it's like, okay, yeah, you've

(02:31):
got a lot going there. Now. Of course they get
in first talking about their experience with how off putting
it is. This already sets it up called Taku. Here's
the thing I never like Kotaku. Kotaku is not of
all the gaming journalists. I'm not fond of them very much.
They're very opinionated. IDN had an interesting thing where they
kind of broke everything down a lot. Of course, they

(02:55):
immediately talk about how difficult, how difficult to escape of
Tarkov is. You know, survival cans like they'rest some specific
health condition like bone fractions are accounted for, but even
more casual genres like the short lived DMZ mode and
Modern Warfare two often results in such an uphill battle
for the next match that you're usually too under equipped
to be able to extend even encounters with the most

(03:17):
trivial AI, let alone fully equipped players. Many folks like
this kind of challenge, but it's a niche crowd for sure.
Now we're moving into Bungee's game marathon, and they're gonna
talk about it because they gave a gameplay reveal for
the game. Now, if you have not seen the gameplay
reveal for Marathon, Go watch it. I'll be here. I'll
be here. If you don't know anything about Marathon, go

(03:39):
watch it. It's honestly my impressions of watching the gameplay
trailer it it felt hollow in that very corporate way
that I'm like, I don't like this. I don't like that.
You guys don't seem to understand your audience enough to

(04:00):
respect what they're trying to do, you know. They that's
bad phrasing. And because I'm doing this recorded is live,
like I do all my podcasts, I'm not going to
edit that out. I'm just going to backtrack the statement
and say I think Benji's not capable of it. At

(04:21):
this point, Bungie is in a very awkward state within
the industry, destiny to kind of like financially successful but
kind of niche already, and they're moving into Marathon, which
is another very niche audience, and they are introducing something
that doesn't fit into other this kind of extraction shooter format,

(04:47):
which is they are introducing classes. You've got the locust
soldier type character. It's all about push forward gameplay, blackbird
or reconnaissance based runner Litch a speedy disruptor and a
stealthy runner. Now, honestly, I'm not completely opposed to class

(05:08):
based games like this. That's not saying that they're fantastic,
but I'm not also not saying that they're bad. They
have to be carefully balanced, otherwise you're gonna have one
class run over everybody else. Bungeee is very bad at this.
I don't remember a time when Destiny I was balanced.

(05:31):
They cannot balance classes. They either overcorrect and they undercorrect,
and modern Bungee I am not convinced they're capable of
doing it. Players will be able to find various implants
and cores to spice up their runners, but given the
inherent traits of each runner, such as the double jump
and locus is deployable shields, it sounds like you're always
able to deploy into a match with baseline defensive and

(05:52):
offensive capabilities. Okay, now this is coming into where they're
trying to talk about how this game is supposed to
be approachable. What do you mean you come in with
abilities and offensive and defensive capabilities, You're supposed to jump
in and find your equipment or bring your equipment in
with you. I feel like that's very much defeating the

(06:16):
purpose of an extraction shooter and really kind of taking
the teeth out of it. The thing about an extraction
shooter is it's an all or nothing fight. You either
get in there and you die with your stuff and
you get nothing. In fact, you lose resources or you
get out with the mother load or whatever supplies you're after.

(06:39):
But now you're saying, Okay, we're not starting from zero
every time we lose, and that's okay because you know,
you want to make sure you're encouraging new players and
trying to But when you're encouraging new players not to
turn off. But when you are breaking into this niche,
a very hardcore niche, and you're trying to make it

(07:02):
more casual, Now, what are you thinking? And I'm not
being elitist here, I'm just saying what they're doing is
they're taking the teeth out of the extraction shooter. Coming
in with your stuff, why what's the point of going
If you have basic, basic equipment, all like overall basic abilities,

(07:27):
basic everything, it doesn't feel like you're taking as big
of a risk when you're jumping into in a game
of Escape from Tarkov or you're jumping into you're jumping
into DMZ or any other extraction shooter. You were new
you were taking a massive risk that you could lose

(07:47):
everything in a moment. And this is just saying, okay,
no matter what you lose, you are going to have
base abilities and base capabilities that you won't lose, which
means feet isn't as bad. Perhaps most of these classes
dynamics provide a bit of a script that players should
identify ideally follow during a match. Okay, there's the problem

(08:12):
the script that players should ideally follow during a match.
Why why should like, let me put this in perspective.
You're jumping in, You're on the battlefield, and now you're
going you're you shouldn't be scripted. None of this should

(08:36):
feel scripted. You know ce a locus, You know that
character has superior firepower. See avoid you'll know to expect
some sneaky shenanigans. That's just class gameplay. It also means
that you'll spend less time scavenging things from the map
for the sole purpose of being able to fill the
roles after you've died. Ooh, that is a problem. It
means that you'll spend less time scavenging things from the map,

(08:59):
which there's probably less things to scavenge. These extraction shooters
are very large on scavenging. You get your equipment, you
upgrade your equipment in the field, you get based on
the R ANDNG. Now you're saying, okay, we're gonna be
we're focusing less on that, which is the core gameplay
loop of an extraction shooter. So I'm questioning whether they

(09:23):
intend for this to actually be an extraction shooter or
if they just want a class PvP game, which technically
they already had in Destiny too, but they kind of
gave up on Destiny's multiplayer a long time ago, which
also kind of gives me some This also gives me
this kind of they gave up on PvP and Destiny,

(09:47):
what's to stop them from giving up on PvP in
Marathon And just because it's part of the core game,
I don't believe that's something that we should that that's
possible there. And then of course it means that you'll
spend less time scavenging things from the map In extraction
shooters in which you're deprived of everything after death, it's

(10:08):
easy to get caught in a death spiral of being
too far unequipped for subsequent matches. Yes, I would agree
that's something that happens in these games, but that's part
of the game. You have to build yourself back up.
You've got to be more careful, more tactical, You've got
to think about taking your fights. Writing for ig And
Travis Northill reflect on his preview Marathon, wondering how the

(10:29):
brutal feeling that you'll never catch a break at the
repeat deaths and being deprived of useful loot will sit
with folks who are new to the genre. Ah, and
there we are. There's the core of this. How is
this supposed to feel to newcomers to the genre? And
I get it. You know, you want to bring in

(10:51):
new players. You want to bring in new players. You
want players to come in. Otherwise your game's going to fail,
especially if you're trying to break in. You need to
introduce new players to the genre. Because if Marathon does
not give us something that other extraction shooters don't, there's
no reason for us to keep playing. There's absolutely no
reason for us to keep playing. I talk about this,

(11:14):
I watch the gameplay stuff, and I study that gameplay
suff It didn't strike me as impressive and coming off
of the kind of mixed bag that Destiny to what
has been, I'm not confident that Bungee can pull this off.

(11:35):
The character designs don't look that great. Honestly, the character
designs do not look that great. You can I should
have pulled them up here, but I'm just kind of
going off the cuff here wanted to talk about it.
After looking at everything, I don't feel like they've got this.
The game has these great environment backgrounds from Unreal five,

(11:57):
but the characters lack a soul and not to mention like,
the trailers are kind of confusing. If you've looked at
the actual like cinematic trailer, it looks like something that
you would want like Hideo Kojima working on, but somebody
without his skill mating it was very Kojima like high concept.

(12:19):
And then the art director the videographer didn't or whatever
it is, the director just was not capable of doing that,
which is very concerning. I'm most worried that we're gonna
get a mid game from Bungee, which is disappointed. They're
going back to their shooter roots. They did Halo. They

(12:40):
Destiny Won was good at least after they got updates
in it. That's and this is not a free game.
That is another big thing. This is not free game.
This is gonna be a forty dollars game. Yeah, this
is gonna be a forty dollars game. And you want

(13:01):
to bring new people into the genre, a very tricky
genre for a forty dollars a game that looks mid
at best. They're already setting up seasonal plans and all
this stuff, and I'm like, wait, no, why are you
building a season because that means you're going to be
adding things like new classes, new characters. This isn't gonna

(13:24):
feel I have my most concerning thing for Sorry, the
most concerning thing for me is that this will start
as a team based extraction shooter and then it'll devolve
into a hero shooter. How long before they how long
before they decide, Oh, we don't just want the extraction mode. Okay,

(13:48):
let's add an objective mode. You know you're not gonna
lose anything. Set up your lead out, go into the fight,
sit on the box, and then we're gonna have another
generic hero shooter. I don't believe Bungie's got this. I
think I think we all should be very concerned about
what Bunge's doing here. The old team, the old Bungee

(14:10):
isn't there anymore. They've proven that with Destiny they are
not there and their partnership with Sony, Sony's gonna be
breathing down their neck and everything. I mean, just just
look at this little gameplay segment here. The character on
the left doesn't look that great. Neither does this one.

(14:31):
They lack textures on them. And sure it's an alpha,
but this is what you're putting out and you're proud
of that. I'm not convinced that this game is gonna
be anything better than a mid game. I would put
it as I'm betting it's gonna be about average. It's

(14:53):
gonna be your five out of ten, which is disappointing.
I want Bungee to come back. Let's finish up this
article here. Well, It's Claire Marathon will reward players who
stay alive the longest. Being able to jump back in
after dying with a set of useful abilities should make
it easier to dust yourself off and be of use
to your team. Mixing the fact that the game features

(15:15):
no survival mechanics or an injury system that heal elements
specific plus Bungee signature talents and creating shooters that feel
responsive and satisfying to play might be the Extraction Shooter's
chance to shine again. This is the problem with mainstream media.
They want to coax mainstream gaming media. They want to
coax their words. Bungie Bungee, please please invite us to

(15:40):
play your game early again, That's what that comes off
to me, as Oh, give hell how it is. The
game doesn't look great. The game looks mid at best.
The combat doesn't look energy. It looks energetic, but it
doesn't really fit the kind of extraction shooter. You're taking
out the survival bits, you're taking out the wound spin

(16:02):
what are we scavenging for? What are we scavenging for
basic weapons? Is this just gonna be a war like
a war zone again? This is my fear it is
going to devolve into it either a hero shooter or
even worse, a battle royale. They're gonna start adding game
modes when when the survival aspect doesn't fit because they

(16:25):
need to bring new players in. They're gonna need that.
I have a bad feeling that this game is going
to spiral like destiny to his spirals. You know, they
introduced Gambit, then they introduced seasonal stuff, and they introduced
seasonal quests, and I'm like, no, it's not a good
it's not a good idea. You should not be setting
this up a forty dollars game with seasons cool. Are

(16:48):
all the seasons free? They better all be free, otherwise
you're once again micro transactioning a forty dollars game. I
wanted to come back with something more positive than Marathon,
but I'm just not convinced that Marathon's going to be
that good. I'm betting Marathon's going to be probably mid
at best, which is really disappointing right now when there's

(17:12):
so many other things to play. If you want extraction shooters,
escape from Tarkov is probably your best bet. I mean,
it's gonna be hard, It's always gonna be hard. If
you don't want this scavenging kind of extraction shooter, well, Heyday.
I think Payday classifies as an extraction shooter, a little
bit different, team based. Again, Marathon's going for the team based,

(17:33):
but this is supposed to be your scavenging type of
extraction shooter. That's the other issue. Extraction shooters are such
a broad term. You know, heyday three technically counts. Hey,
hell divers too technically counts. So seeing what kind of
game it is, they strip down all the survival elements,
You're still trying to scavenge gear. What does the scavenged

(17:53):
gear do? Is there enough of it to keep the
gameplay loop going? Is there a reason to keep going
once you're fully equip or do you have your legendary
gun and all your legendary attachments and your legendary armors
and you just say I don't want to take the
risks anymore and you put the game down. That's the
worry that I have with this, and that's kind of
everything that I've got with this. I think there's nothing

(18:18):
else to cover right now until we get more of
the game, until the game comes out and we finally
get to see is this good or not. I'm gonna
save my true judgment for them. I'm just not very
optimistic that this game is going to be a success.
Thank everybody for listening and watching and hanging out with me.
Of course, leave that subscribe, hit that like, follow, leave

(18:42):
a review. If you're on our audio and check out
our twitch streams, you can support us there as we're
gearing up. I guess I don't know. I've been playing
Monster Hunter. You can always join me for some Monster
Hunter or Dungeons and Dragons. We will catch you guys
later
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.