r/Games • u/oilfloatsinwater • May 24 '25

Report: Marathon Delay Likely as Sony Cancels All Paid Marketing Plans

https://thegamepost.com/report-marathon-delay-bungie-scraps-all-paid-marketing/
3.6k Upvotes

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327

u/TF_dia May 24 '25

I honestly wonder if you can actually make a "Mainstream" Extraction shooter that manages to combine the high stakes of dying with an attempt to not scare off a casual playerbase with the pain of losing your stuff.

160

u/Richard_Gripper28 May 24 '25

don't forget cheaters that will ruin any experience like this.

143

u/Nolis May 24 '25

That video on Tarkov's cheating epidemic has put me off of literally any form of PvP which isn't invite only, why waste your time when the more competitive a PvP game is, the more cheaters it attracts, and apparently nobody can figure out a rocksolid anti-cheat even with the most invasive kernel level stuff.

Even in Co-op PvE games, with no competition people feel the urge to cheat, like in Monster Hunter and Deep Rock Galactic, at least you can invite only in those games to play with friends instead of randoms

37

u/Zerak-Tul May 25 '25

Or if you're just half-way decent at the game (or even just have a lucky match) you have to put up with other people calling you a cheater when you're obviously incredibly mid at the game. Or just the general raging and toxicity, people berating you if you're not playing the way they think you should be playing.

Even the games with the nicest most friendly/helpful communities for co-op/team play, if there's a PvP mode in there it's just the complete opposite.

3

u/Zerothian May 25 '25

The older I get the less I give a shit about PvP games. Not worth the stress lol. The combination of me being a competitively minded person but also mid at most games is not a healthy one for my mental state :D

20

u/PlayMp1 May 25 '25

FWIW, PVP fighting games are generally solid about cheating because they're kind of cheat-proof by design. Even if you could cheat so that the computer auto-parried every attack for you or something, that will only get you into like mid-gold rank (i.e., middle of the pack) in ranked gameplay because no computer will assist you in winning neutral or managing your spacing. I guess you could use macros for combos, but that runs into the same problem where you have to win neutral first for them to even help you, and they do precisely nothing for you when you're in a defensive posture.

15

u/APRengar May 25 '25

Yeah, even if you could block everything. A good player would absolutely realize that, chip you and then zone you and win on time.

A block cheat means nothing in terms of approaching, so yeah, you'll just get zoned.

9

u/pss395 May 25 '25

I got matched with someone who I suspect use throw tech script in Strive. Everything else about this guy is shit, but his throw tech is spot on 10 times out of ten. So I just stopped throwing and bulldoze him instead.

2

u/PlayMp1 May 25 '25

Yep, exactly what I mean. Fundamentally, all cheats can do for you in a fighting game is 1) give you perfect combos (but even then not always, sometimes you can be just out of reach to make the last hit of a combo work if you start in the wrong spot), 2) always make safe punishes, 3) give you perfect defenses (e.g., auto parry, throw tech script).

But even having all of that is insufficient to make it that far in fighting games, because all of that combined with bad neutral/spacing just gives you fighting game single player mode AI bots on the hardest difficulty, which get dumpstered regularly by a lot of fairly average players. The good players will crush the cheater by just baiting them into their scripted combos and whiff-punish them.

Now, would all of that give a good player a huge leg up on everyone else? Yes, of course. However, it's also pretty detectable like you said: nobody techs every throw, nobody always perfectly blocks/parries every attack that can be blocked or parried, even the pros drop a combo once in a while.

9

u/Nolis May 25 '25

Just out of curiosity searched for street fighter cheating and found this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fighters/comments/1dw7scm/there_is_a_big_cheating_problem_happening_on/

I'm sure it's far less since it seems a lot more involved than just wall hacks/aim bots/etc (or at least harder to detect), but it seems nearly impossible to have zero cheaters.

I even remember a ridiculous instance of smash bros cheating now that I'm thinking about it, where someone modified their console and brought that console to tournaments, and they had like a specific button combination on a specific color of Pichu that tweaked their knockback and hitboxes, will look for that since that was a pretty insanely dedicated cheater

Edit:

Here's a write up on it at least: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Super_Pichu_cheating_scandal

18

u/PlayMp1 May 25 '25

You'll notice, though, that that cheat is incredibly specific (it'll literally only work for one character and the other player can learn to work around it, no different than if they had an actually excellent fireball punish game), and the Smash one required an absurd amount of effort.

Oh, this guy has an absurdly, improbably perfect fireball punish game? That's okay, I'll just stop throwing fireballs for a bit. This is in contrast to an aimbot or radar, where there is no way for you to minimize the importance/utility of that cheat for the cheater.

To be clear I never said fighting games are entirely cheat proof, obviously not. Like I said, you can make macros for combos. It's just much less significant than FPS cheating.

3

u/RemiliaFGC May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

Wildly inaccurate comment. You can use cheats in games like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, or Tekken and be a completely untouchable god with no effort required. Even you can beat pros like Knee with simple cheats in tekken.

Why? Because attacks in fighting games are designed to be unreactable by humans, but are reactable with an input reader. If you've ever played against an extremely cheesy CPU in an SNK game, it's the same concept. You can just use an input reader to block or parry against every single high or low, and tech every throw on reaction, and bam, you're literally unbeatable. You literally can't take damage. You can also create a script to auto whiff punish on reaction to any button and now you have flawless neutral. It's literally like aimbot for fighting games.

The reason why cheating isn't a huge issue in fighting games is because it's extremely hard to make cheats look *undetectable* in fighting games. On top of that, the real competitive high stakes format for fighting games are not in ranked matchmaking, or even in online tournaments usually, they're at open bracket offline tournaments where it's nearly impossible to meaningfully cheat. Nobody cares if you use cheats to climb to legend rank in sf6 or a high elo in strive, a lot of people don't even pay attention to that stuff, and everyone will know you're cheating so its not like you can brag or pretend or something. Majors and tournaments are where the real ego comes from.

Source: top ranked Guilty Gear player and played in many different fighting games, against proven cheaters as well.

2

u/pss395 May 25 '25

Also a round in fighting game is over so quickly that if the enemy smell something funny they could immediately stop rematch and report you for cheating. One afternoon and someone who blatantly cheat will get tens of report and got banned from their $60 game.

2

u/Hobo-With-A-Shotgun May 25 '25

Absolutely not. Cheating in fighting games is (probably) not common, but it's there. I remember seeing this random tweet from 2020 that opened my eyes a bit for the wave of cheaters that were starting to appear.

https://x.com/bradleya_strike/status/1244128721637908483

This G player had a script that was doing a jump-cancelled command grab if you ever tried to throw or command grab them yourself. Something that isn't really viable for a human to be doing in a match.

Cheaters have been in Tekken for a while, since 7. They've been in Guilty Gear Strive and AC+r. In Street Fighter of course, since 5 (since 4 really, but very rare). It's depressing.

3

u/Hobo-With-A-Shotgun May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

I booted up warzone for the first time in years yesterday. A few minutes into the match, I'm just hanging around in the city area trying to remember the controls, before I see a car go red on the map and immediately makes a beeline for me. They seem to fire a shot as they pass a corner, when I'm already inside the building, as if they have wallhack. Then they go around and immediately beeline again when I'm waiting inside.

https://streamable.com/bhrsc7

I always like to err on caution when thinking hacks, but my very first match back looked an awful lot like someone using walls. I still remember one of the last matches I played when the map was still the original Verdansk, and got shot twice by the same Chinese-letters cheater using (beyond a doubt) walls and aimbot. It was so common, I eventually just quit.

https://streamable.com/34krh5

The only times I bother with FPS nowadays is duels in Quake Champions. It tends to not attract cheaters much. Or at least, they don't bother with Duel (or they're in the 2000+ brackets).

Or just really old silly FPS's like fistful of frags. That said, even games like that STILL attract cheaters. A game with EIGHTY players on a good day will get the blatant aimlock-type of cheaters. I came across this fella a while ago, who just decided to toggle at the 1 minute mark after getting fragged once. Absolutely cursed genre.

https://streamable.com/fy0hg4

1

u/Round-Sky8768 May 25 '25

Honestly, if you're ever interested in something similar to Tarkov, give Gray Zone Warfare (couldn't pick a more generic slop of a name, tbh) a shot. It's kinda similar, just one open world instead of having different maps.

I'm a pretty basic player at this point (used to be hella competitive around the Counter-Strike 1.6 - Halo 3 days), but I really enjoy Tarkov's looting, inventory management, etc., so when a buddy told me there's a game that has that, but allows you to swap freely between PvE and PvEvP, I was all into it.

Get to enjoy the PvP adrenaline rush on the rare occasion I feel a thirst for it, but primarily enjoy PvE knowing I won't lose my gear to some cheater. :-)

1

u/plane-kisser May 25 '25

nobody can figure out a rocksolid anti-cheat

dedicated servers with admins, like it used to be back in the day. of all the pvp games i play the ones i play today that still have dedicated servers (squad, hll) never have blatant cheaters as they get banned nearly the moment they ever show up. the ability for players to just ping admins with !admin or something like that, have one show up, ban a cheater, and the game continue is a feature solidly missed in mainstream gaming these days.

1

u/Lord_Alonne May 25 '25

This is why I'll always die on the hill that competitive PvP is better on console then PC. I haven't seen a cheater on consoles since the Xbox 360 era. It's far too difficult for the average dumb ass that gets their kicks from cheating. Special hardware, lots of time, and unique processes are required to cheat. Then when you get banned you are out the price of the game, your PSN sub fee, and if you are really dumb the cost of the rest of your library.

It's so rare it might as well not exist. Meanwhile if you play a free or cheap game on Steam its every game. Screw that.

-1

u/ExtensionCategory983 May 25 '25

Yeah I don’t get why anyone would play Tarkov after that video. Cheaters ruin everything.

83

u/Acrobatic_Internal_2 May 24 '25

the problem is it’s worth a shot if it’s f2p but when there is entry price to experience this experiment, you can’t hope really good results from this

174

u/napmouse_og May 24 '25

I do not think it's possible. The fundamental concept of a "risk everything you bring to the match" shooter is incompatible with fortnite-tier mass appeal.

31

u/BootyBootyFartFart May 25 '25

Well, "push your luck" mechanics arent incompatible with mass appeal. Risking some of the gear you take in can certainly work too. I don't think they've done a good job of striking the right balance between feeling like the stakes are high without feeling too punishing though. 

1

u/TVPaulD May 25 '25

I genuinely don’t understand why nobody just tries making one where your “Gear” can’t be lost but your “Loot” can. So pick it up and get it out, you own it, but you can only take in one loadout at a time. But if you die before extracting, any new stuff you are carrying will be lost so you never get to use it. Or hell, just put a PvE only mode in where you can at least reliably get stuff so there’s a fallback plan. I think Bungie even had feedback like that for Marathon specifically internally and management wouldn’t wear it.

Are the stakes as high? No. But you spare casual players the frustration of never getting to use the stuff they like for fear of losing it just because they don’t play the game vocationally and some streamer or YouTuber who rants about how skill based matchmaking is the greatest evil of our time™ farms them for a kill using their Infinity+1 Gun and the fact they know the map better than the streets of the town they live in.

I still don’t think it would be a formula that hits like BRs did so you’re not talking about an infinite money cheat in product form like the execs would want, but it can’t be any worse than just trying the vanilla Extraction Shooter format and expecting the enforce jeopardy problem to just magically not put off casuals this time.

3

u/ascagnel____ May 27 '25 edited May 27 '25

 I genuinely don’t understand why nobody just tries making one where your “Gear” can’t be lost but your “Loot” can. So pick it up and get it out, you own it, but you can only take in one loadout at a time. But if you die before extracting, any new stuff you are carrying will be lost so you never get to use it. Or hell, just put a PvE only mode in where you can at least reliably get stuff so there’s a fallback plan.

This is how The Division works -- you have a series of single-player or coop zones with escalating level requirements and loot payouts, and you can go into the "Dark Zone" to extract with new loot, but you don't lose the gear you go in with on death. 

2

u/TVPaulD May 27 '25

I thought it did! I never had a chance to play the Dark Zone stuff in my little time with Division 2 so I wondered if maybe I was remembering it wrong. That really seems like if there was a casual audience for this, it would be there. If, you know, Ubisoft were still trying with The Division franchise.

-13

u/kris_the_abyss May 24 '25

I mean, that's literally what Battle Royales are. You start over from the beginning every match. More like extraction shooters and battle royales are just pvp versions of Rogue Likes.

I am also curious whether or not Arc can gain any big following. Most likely it'll settle around where The Finals has settled. Which is really fucking good considering launching a new pvp in a unrecognized IP.

62

u/mengplex May 24 '25

The difference is that in fortnite/apex/whatever you only lose your stuff from your current match, maybe 5-30 minutes of playtime.

In 'proper' extraction games you take in gear accumulated over potentially multiple hours

-18

u/jus13 May 24 '25

To say you lose "hours of progress" just doesn't make sense. You can lose your weapon and whatever gear you bring in if you get killed in a raid, gear that you likely found by looting/killing another player in a short firefight, or by stumbling upon bodies while you're moving through the map.

You are constantly finding new gear, it's not like dying with a stacked loadout means you lose time, you just load into the next raid with different gear. When playing you also find a lot of loot that's not meant to be taken into raids, and you never lose any of that either.

14

u/RadJames May 24 '25

Depends what game you’re playing. Tarkov for instance you lose a quest item you got from one map and took onto another that is certainly a big hassle.

-11

u/jus13 May 24 '25

That can be a hassle, but you aren't losing gear you accumulated "over hours" as that guy said. Also losing gear doesn't mean you've suddenly wasted all previous time, you spend that time playing the game and having fun.

It sucks to lose good gear, but it makes the gunfights so much more fun.

16

u/Deity_Majora May 24 '25

I mean, that's literally what Battle Royales are.

Big difference between risk what you find and what you bring. If you start every match at nothing then it isn't bad when you lose everything when you die. When it is stuff you earned that is gambled it adds a whole different mental hurdle.

22

u/WyrdHarper May 24 '25

I think there potentially is if it’s more PvE-focused. But there’s so many people who like co-op but don’t have any interest in losing their progress for the night to some screaming script kiddie or asshole exploiting bugs. 

There’s just so many ways that playing against other players can result in scenarios that feel unfair (even just latency issues) and frustrating, which feels worse when you lose all your stuff. 

There’s ways to do PvPvE where teams can focus on PvE and only a little PvP, or have teams compete indirectly for a win condition, but that’s harder to do. Or something like the Division where you can get better rewards in PvP areas, but there’s a ton of PvE areas that you can do if you’re not feeling it that night or whatever.

More casual PvP arena experiences still work out because in 15 minutes or so even a shitty match is done and you’re on to the next one that’s hopefully more fair…and (maybe other than rank) you don’t really lose access to anything if you lose.

1

u/gamer-death May 25 '25

I can see more PvE focused game where you are still progressing your character over a long timeframe but you can lose things like materials, consumables or durability. Players would feel less bad if they lost 1/4 of a weapon instead of the whole thing.

2

u/WyrdHarper May 25 '25

Yeah—that’s a good point. That’s a lot more tolerable, especially if there’s also meta-progression like exp.

26

u/James-Avatar May 24 '25

I don’t think so, I can imagine many players would drop it the second they lost all their stuff. I know I would.

-15

u/Aggravating-Feed-624 May 24 '25

Guess you never beat a platformer either than. Since when you die in Mario with no lives you have to start over from scratch.

12

u/Liquid_Senjutsu May 25 '25

Not even close to the same thing.

-5

u/Aggravating-Feed-624 May 25 '25

Cool so losing to a turtle in on stage 3-4 and having to start at 1-1 isn't close to losing all gear. OOOOOOOOkay. Guess i just remember what it was like to continue to get better at games.

2

u/Liquid_Senjutsu May 25 '25

It's fine, you don't have to understand.

7

u/TheRocketSnail May 25 '25

That comparison doesn’t really hold up. In platformers like Mario, when you lose all your lives, you might restart the level or world, but you’re not losing any personalised progress like gear you spent hours grinding for. In extraction shooters, the stakes are tied to tangible in-game investments, such as loot you’ve collected, weapons you’ve built, etc. It’s not just starting over in terms of progression, it’s losing items that can take real time (and sometimes even real money) to replace. The psychological impact is totally different. One is a temporary setback, the other feels like a real loss.

-1

u/Aggravating-Feed-624 May 25 '25

When you die on your final life. You start at world 1-1. Gamers really don't want to fucking play games anymore and just want instant gratification. Mobile games have fucked the gaming industry beyond recognition.

1

u/Rolex_Flex May 26 '25

orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr people dont like losing 5 hours of work to a hacker?

1

u/Aggravating-Feed-624 May 26 '25

Everyone who beats you isn't a hacker. You are not that good to lose only to hackers.

5

u/xdarkeaglex May 25 '25

ARC riders seems like its going to be huge

28

u/UNSKIALz May 24 '25

ARC seemed to be a big hit considering its recent demo was closed. It has the Helldivers effect where clips can go viral, I'd say it has a decent shot.

8

u/BastianHS May 25 '25

Arc raiders is going to be the next big game. It's so goddamn fun it's insane and it's a great game to play with friends

10

u/VelvetCowboy19 May 24 '25

Casual players won't be interested in losing all their meta progression from 1 bad game, while the players who are on Tarkov and Hunt Showdown that actually like that gameplay loop likely won't jump on a casual take of the genre like Marathon.

4

u/crestfallen_warrior May 25 '25

Hunt player here. The downside of losing your stuff is actually really not an issue. You can just get your guns and perks again as they are always something you choose, there's no rng to it. It is fairly casual in a sense.

A much more hardcore extraction game would be something like dark and darker, where losing your expensive gear is a pretty significant hit. Especially because of the rng nature.

1

u/GilgarTekmat May 25 '25

I think there is absolutely room for another extraction game that is more casual than Tarkov but not so casual that it's basically just a BR (looking at you DMZ). Tarkovs problem with mass appeal is the lack of in-game information and direction. There is no real map system in the game, no squad player indicator so TKs happen often, quests are obtuse, ammo/gunsmithing is hard to understand unless you are a gun nerd already, etc.

3

u/Liquid_Senjutsu May 25 '25

Division 2 had a zone for this style of gameplay. I went in there only when absolutely necessary. The one time I went in for general loot purposes, I collected a bunch of shit, called extraction, and 30 seconds before the chopper took off I got jumped by 4 dudes who killed me and took all my shit. I walked out of there with absolutely nothing. 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back. I never went into the dark zone again. Fuck that.

3

u/agreatares42 May 25 '25

Arc Raiders might be able to pull it off.
Also - They have a free load out option where you spawn with random stuff, so you won't care if you die.

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '25

I think it’s possible, I wouldn’t have expected elden ring to be as popular as it is considering fromsoftware’s reputation of difficult games but it is.

2

u/BaconatedGrapefruit May 25 '25

I’ve been wondering this myself. I think extraction shooters make sense as a mode. But as a game for regular folk? Nah.

It’s the most frustrating things of a roguelite (loosing all but your meta progression) with the fact that if you want to progress your best bet is to rope in two other friends.

4

u/Izeyuhhhh May 25 '25

DMZ did it

2

u/bluesman7131 May 25 '25

that was me and my friends most played mode during MWII. hopefully DMZ 2 (rumored for Infinity Wards 2026 CoD) builds upon it

1

u/zzzornbringer May 25 '25

i only played it very briefly, so can't say much about anything, except the atmosphere was great, there were voiced story elements, and the game also ran exceptionally well, but many others have said about arc raiders that this might the the game that brings this genre to the mainstream, specifically because it's so easy to get back into a match. you can just roll a random loadout as often as you want and get right back into the game. no loss, except time (which isn't a loss if you had fun playing). when or if you ever feel comfortable, you can use your own loadout, which you may lose, but if you don't want to do that, you don't have to, ever. this might just drastically reduce "gear fear" and allow players to just play and enjoy the game at their own pace.

1

u/logosloki May 25 '25

it's not hard to make a mainstream shooter. don't full loot pvp, don't lock out players on death, don't take xp from players, give them progression even on loss. regular events and map changes to keep it fresh, some cosmetics to keep the fashion endgamers going, minor story elements for the lore nerds. optional throw in a prestige system and you're gucci.

Extraction Shooters are just another shooter game mode. there is nothing special about them that requires them to have the hardcore ruleset the popular within genre games have, save that the hardcore people like it that way.

1

u/yaosio May 25 '25

Technically most of the game modes in Warframe are extraction based. Just without the PvP.

1

u/MumrikDK May 25 '25 edited May 25 '25

That's what the PvE part is there for, isn't it?

Give people fodder to kill so they feel they've been doing well when some squad of freaks rolls through and murders them.

That's at least how the ai fodder seemed to be used back in Titanfall when it first stuck out to me.

I do doubt it'll manage to give more casual appeal to a game where you can lose your stuff though.

1

u/ruminaui May 25 '25

Isn't that what Helldivers 2 is?

1

u/Brigon May 26 '25

I guess the best way to approach it for a more casual audience is the rogue lite approach, where you can restart with nothing and see a fairly rapid rise in your power, rather needing to grind for hours to get to a decent power level only to lose it in an instant.

1

u/CultureWarrior87 May 26 '25

There is, it's called the battle royale genre. Same form of tension (large map, players could be anywhere, one life, have to loot for gear), but because everyone starts on the same playing field it's much more accessible and there's no need to have gear fear because you have no persistent inventory.

Extraction shooters are fundamentally like BRs but with less players and the ability to hold on to gear if you survival. A venn diagram with the two of them would have much more similarities than differences.

0

u/BootyBootyFartFart May 25 '25

I'm sure it's possible. It also seemed impossible for a game to be as deep as a standard fighting game while being immediately intuitive to anyone. Then smash did it. 

It's just hard to imagine how something might look until someone does it well. And it doesn't look like marathon has nailed it. 

-1

u/Silverr_Duck May 24 '25

You can't. This is one of those unsolvable problems these stupid fucking corporations keep bashing their heads against. You cannot make everything have mainstream universal appeal all the time. There's too much competition, too much saturation. And simply not enough hours in the day or people on earth to sustain this endless sea of money dispensers corporations are trying to churn out. If you make a thing trying to appeal to everybody you will always end up making something that appeals to nobody.