Marathon Reviews

It’s been almost a decade since Bungie, the acclaimed studio behind Halo and Destiny, launched its last video game. To say that a lot has changed in that time is a severe understatement, whether we’re talking about the company being acquired by Sony or the rise and fall of myriad multiplayer trends.

Bungie successfully makes a grab at the extraction shooter crown with Marathon. Rook is a revelation for solos, and Cryo Archive is the best endgame experience in the genre. It is mean, yet fair, with more than ample flair. The biggest issue is that you’re currently not playing it, hence my matchmaking woes.

Bungie delivers a shooter that excels in moment-to-moment gameplay, with tight gunplay and a tense, addictive PvPvE loop that keeps you coming back. However, that strong foundation is held back by slow progression, gear imbalance, and systems that don’t always respect the player’s time. Marathon shows real potential, but right now, it feels like a game still trying to fully find its identity.

Marathon is revival of Bungie’s dormant 30-year-old franchise. With excellent gunplay, stylish graphics and a thrilling gameplay loop Marathon is a welcome return. This despite confusing UI, frustrating runs and questions about its future.

Thirty two years. That’s how long it’s been since the release of the original Marathon, a series that, after two additional games, went into hibernation while Bungie developed the Halo series. Well, it’s finally time to return to Tau Ceti IV, and it’s no less dangerous than it was last time you were there.

Marathon is a testament to the fact that Bungie still has it. What “it” is, is the studio’s ability to deliver a video game dripping with unique vibes, gunplay that is simply unmatched in the first-person shooter space, systems and mechanics that push a genre forward, and deep, exhilarating, and quite frankly, challenging gameplay. It took Bungie a long time to deliver, a lot of ups and downs and setbacks, but Marathon is the best extraction shooter on the block.

The bulk of my Marathon first impressions piece discussed my initial difficulty getting to grips with the shooter's core gameplay loop and overcoming its exceptionally steep learning curve. Though I believed the initial grind was worth the pain, I stated that it would be a major turn-off for many new players. After another 20 hours or so, my sentiments have stayed largely the same. But the more time I've spent with Marathon, the more I can safely say that the good heavily outweighs the bad.

With spellbinding combat and high-concept maps, Marathon is far more than a cool aesthetic draped over the bones of an extraction shooter.

Marathon is a challenging, gorgeous, addictive, and deceptively deep extraction shooter. Bungie has created a gorgeous world with a captivating sci-fi story lurking beneath the surface, and thrown in their signature gunplay to create one of the year's best games. It is for a very niche audience. But for those willing to accept its extreme highs and lows, there is something quite compelling about its gameplay loop.

While I wish and hope that Bungie would tweak certain aspects, I still think Marathon is a solid shooter and I greatly appreciate its willingness to cater to a specific, if hardcore audience. I’m still addicted enough to continue playing it, despite my complaints. While I think it falls short of its competition, mainly another recent extraction shooter featuring robotic enemies. I still want to see Marathon succeed anyway and I look forward to seeing Bungie expand upon and tweak it.

So far, Marathon is an absolutely fantastic multiplayer shooter. The narrative manages to be compelling, even without a single-player campaign; the presentation is a treat to look at, and the gameplay still has me hooked. While I fear for its ability to deliver consistently good content in future updates, Bungie's care for the game thus far and the fact that it already has a committed fanbase have me hopeful and even excited to see how Marathon continues to grow in the coming weeks, months, a...

We’re back

Though it’s impossible not to question Marathon’s long-term appeal, it’s one of the most confident big-budget FPS in years and a fantastic reminder that Bungie devs can shake things up when given the space and freedom to cook.

In-progress review [10 March 2026]: There’s calm to be found among the tension of those metallic footsteps. The cold, hard sound of a UESC bot patrolling a hallway. It’s a threat, sure. A wrong move and you’ll be knocked before you know what’s happening. As long as they’re there though, as long as their thump-thump-thump moves along the corridor, you’ve got some semblance of protection. An early warning. And so you rifle through loot containers until the quiet sets in.

I didn’t expect Marathon to leave as large of an impact on me as it has. While I’ve loved Bungie games in the past, including hundreds of hours spent in Destiny 2, from the outside looking in I didn’t anticipate it would nail the extraction-shooter loop as well as it has – nor how well it would mesh with Bungie's existing expertise.

Marathon is a brilliant distillation of what makes an excellent extraction shooter, and a glimpse at where they could go next.

Marathon is hands down the best extraction shooter on the market. From the gunplay to the way the game handles the distribution of story, there's a lot to love in Marathon. While the quality of life could be improved in some respects and some of the UI elements could be adjusted, the overall game stands as a testament that Bungie knows how to make a good game. The biggest issue the game will face is appealing to the less hardcore players and getting them to stick around, but with Bungie continuing to iterate on the game, things will likely work out just fine for this unbelievably fun extraction shooter.

Marathon looks great and benefits from some excellent moment-to-moment action, especially if you’re playing with friends. Even so, the clear lack of content, terrible cosmetics, and abundance of repetitive fetch quests give you few compelling reasons to keep coming back for more once the initial burst of excitement wears off.

Marathon is a great-looking and extremely rewarding competitive extraction shooter let down by an inadequate prologue and poor monetization.

Marathon is further proof of Bungie's pedigree and ability to create enthralling, engaging, and addictive shooters. While Marathon is brutally challenging and unforgiving, especially for the solo or casual player, it begs to be experienced.

There’s been a lot of heat surrounding Marathon in the lead-up to its launch. Some say it’s not what they want from Bungie, others say it's a far cry from the glory days of Halo. But cutting through all of the noise, we think Marathon is actually a bold new adventure from Bungie.

Marathon is an addictive extraction shooter featuring the same masterful gunplay that has made Bungie legendary, making it a must-play for fans of the genre and even those adverse to it.

Three bags of loot, flanked by the bio-synthetic corpses of their previous owners and pools of blue blood. The scene of my murderous victory. Their weapons, implants, heals, and salvage are all mine. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was helping random solo players take out giant robots and diplomatically sharing the spoils in Arc Raiders. However, this is Marathon, and I've left goodwill and friendliness at the door. When the atmosphere is this intense, the gunplay feels this good, and the combat sandbox is this broad, I've found it almost impossible not to squeeze the trigger on every other Runner I see.

Even within its own genre, Marathon is niche - bristling with outlandish color combinations and likely to reject those looking for something more relaxed. Stick with it, however, and the stellar gunplay, intriguing characters, fun mechanics, and tense scenarios will draw you in.

For the first time in nearly a decade, there's a new Bungie game to play. Technically, it's an old Bungie series rebooted, but for a lot of Bungie fans (myself included), Marathon was not the series that introduced me to the storied developer.

Marathon (2026) has me locked in, sitting in my brain until my next run. The barrier to entry is high, but it’s rewarding, with each death being a lesson learned.

Another big negative for Marathon is the stingy "reward pass," which is Bungie's version of a season pass. Seemingly taking no lessons from the last eight-ish years of battle/season pass development, it doesn't provide in-game currency or tantalizing rewards. It's just as dull as the Halo Infinite season pass was at its launch, if not more so. Those comparisons are even more warranted because Marathon's passes also don't expire, which is the one positive from the current iteration of the reward pass.

Bungie’s big comeback attempts to refashion the extraction shooter formula by returning to its root.

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If Arc Raiders was the extraction shooter genre’s Fortnite moment, then Marathon feels like it’s Apex Legends: a more hardcore take on the idea that focuses on pure skill rather than approachability. But based on the Server Slam trial, just like the Runner you control, it feels like it’s stuck in the wrong Shell.

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