What genre should a new game in a trilogy of story-driven, dark sci-fi, single-player games be? Live service slop, of course.

Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat
BattlEye - Requires manual removal after game uninstall

No thanks.

Kernel anti-cheat == rootkit
Hard pass

After how badly Bungie botched D2 pvp over the years in every aspect, from the sandbox to the matchmaking, and continued to double down on those decisions instead of changing course, I have zero faith in them to keep a pvp-only game alive for very long. Can't wait to see it become a FOMO-ridden mess with half the game taken away.

On top of that, they're using the same rootkit anticheat that barely even works for D2. And on top of that, Battleye has stated themselves that Linux support is a very simple opt-in for developers, yet they refuse to do so for either game in 2026. While I have a lot of issues with Arc Raiders (mostly their genAI usage), at least they enabled Battleye's Linux support with zero issues.

Even if I could play it this is a hard pass. Their management and c-suite can rot. Such a waste because the actual devs clearly have skill and talent and can make cool shit, they've proven this time and time again, but Bungie management is actually abusive, both to their employees and the players.

I played one round of the server slam and confirmed I still don’t like extraction shooters.

I wish this gunplay and art style was used in a different game.

Tried to launch the demo. Didn't launch. Figured it had something to do with the anti-cheat.

Only reason I tried because my friend wanted to try it and thought it might be fun to try together. But he played like... One match... And was already tired of it.

Nothing of value was lost.

Marathon released on Steam [Very Positive review] [kernel anticheat] ~~[SteamDeck unsupported]~~

Don't need that last bit, kernel anticheat makes it defacto unplayable on the Deck..... unless you happen to be one of those heathens who installed windows on their Deck....then you can play it...

After seeing the day one micro transaction philosophy, I'm out.

I played the server slam and something felt… off.

First, movement felt horrendously slow. That might have been because of the FOV limit, I usually play around 110 and I think the slider capped at 100z Sprinting hardly felt like a sprint at all - I could barely tell that I was moving any faster.

The most disappointing part was the gunplay. I was expecting this to have the crisp gunplay of Destiny and Halo, but it just… didn’t. That issue became even more glaring when I hopped into Halo 2 the next day and found the gunplay to be substantially more satisfying than Marathon’s.

Far as extraction shooters are concerned, I can like them just fine. I actually really enjoy ARC Raiders. This just felt… hollow.

Maybe I didn’t play / see enough though. I only put in 3-5 rounds before getting bored.

The story has always been my favorite part of the original Marathon. That, and the environment, ambiance, and orientation/wayfinding parts of it And as I've gotten older, I've liked the guns part less and less. I would love it someday if somebody could make a different type of game in the marathon story universe.

Like an urban explorer game where you are looking for a switch to open a door, but you might run into an alien S'pht compiler around the corner.

I'm having fun playing it, but i feel like it wont be around for long. this may be sonys 3 for 3 lol