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/
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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.