What is Marathon's Content Potential?

Today’s Mission

• Give you a 60s rundown of what Marathon is.
• Give you the potential longevity of the game.
• Give you an idea of what Marathon content could look like on social media.

Let’s dive in.

What the hell is Marathon?

From the creators of Halo and Destiny, their new game Marathon is all I've been seeing online. A PvP extraction shooter set in this futuristic, digital? Apex-like world? Which is something fresh compared to the classic military themed games constantly releasing. 

If you've played Call of Duty Warzone's DMZ in 2022 or Tarkov, you'll understand the premise of an extraction shooter.

As you drop into this world, you find loot, you extract from the world, you slowly upgrade your player with said loot; but here's the kicker... you can lose it all if you die inside the world. 

Which from a player perspective and content perspective - high stakes always make for a good story.

It has heroes...

It's also hero-based, which Marathon calls Runners (launching with 4, expanding to 6 in the future), and each Runner has different abilities:

• Locus (All-Around Soldier)
• Blackbird (Recon)
• Glitch (Speedster)
• Void (Assassin)

This will be huge for educational content creators, because the more depth the game has the more there is to teach. 

How long will it last?

Now look, this is purely speculative, the official launch is months away and we're all on the hype-train (myself included); but how long would something like this last?

Let's look at this from a player perspective and a content perspective.

Player Perspective

• New look and feel, but novelty could wear off.
• Not hyper-competitive, which allows for more casual players.
• Global title (PS5, Xbox, PC)
• Player progression is present and seems to be the core driver.
• Gameplay mechanics look smooth.
• Hero-based, which means a variety of playstyles.

Content Perspective

• Every game has high stakes and suspense.
• Educational content can be made on Runners, weapons and quests. 
• Team based which allows for entertainment content. 
• Time limits and Solo vs Teams allows for challenge based content.
• Mastery content is potentially there (Someone who has everything, 1000+ hours etc.)
• Gameplay is fast enough to be entertaining and slow enough to understand what's going on.

From everything we know so far, it looks like Bungie's Marathon has a good mix of player and content focused components which would keep this game enjoyable for a while.

Again this is all theory and we'll never know until we're a couple months into the game. 

Will people watch Marathon on social media?

I think they will.

From the single game they showcased during their reveal stream, it was paced appropriately.

As I touched on some content avenues above, Marathon seems to have all the ingredients to be a hit.. (cliché coming up) but only time will tell. 

 - Nishayne Lowe

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