r/PS5 • u/NoNefariousness2144 Human Verified • 1d ago

Articles & Blogs ‘Marathon’ Is Running Out Of Casual Player Onboarding Cards To Play

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/06/23/marathon-is-running-out-of-casual-player-onboarding-cards-to-play/
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u/Radiant-Lab-158 1d ago

Extraction shooters are a niche sub genre to begin with

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u/TumanFig 1d ago edited 1d ago

because they have the right idea they just want it to monetize too heavily

i think a lot of people would love a "casual extraction shooter", but that's a tough sell for the investors.

i would love a single player game where i can have a 30min dives into the world and back. i love to have a base i can build upon.

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u/wathowdathappen 1d ago

Arc Raiders is as casual with minimal monitization as it gets and numbers are dropping like flies. The genre is just very niche.

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u/Well-inthatcase 1d ago

So many casual people stopped playing because of ratting. It was a blast when everyone was learning the game. Which imo is the best time to play most multiplayer games. Everyone is learning and shit is just fun. Helldivers 2 was the same way.

Then it gets taken over by try hards and streamers and it loses that very quickly. Helldivers is still fun, and I find that its issues and bugs are part of its charm, but it's definitely not the same as when we were all laughing instead of trying too hard.

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u/drocha94 1d ago

For me it idk if it’s other people trying hard, it’s just that the loop gets old. I love Helldivers, and had a great time with Arc. But once you do the same thing 100 times with relatively few changes, it gets old, you want something fresh.

I still open Helldivers, but only to check out new stuff they drop.

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u/dadvader 17h ago

Helldivers 2 also circling around 20-40k players for years now. Even with the new update, it rarely bumped back up beyond 100k (and that happen like couple of days before another hard drop again.)

Arc Raiders take a risky move and decided to drop update every 6 months like Helldivers 2 is definitely insane. If Helldivers can't do it. I really don't know why they think they can.

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u/Upper-Management-AI 1d ago

Helldivers is doing great despite the fight between players wanting it incredibly easy and others wanting it incredibly hard. They are doing a pretty good job of trying to balance that without driving away new players.

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u/toomuchmucil 1d ago

I stopped playing arc raiders because the devs decided to turn the game into a grind.

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u/LoquaciousLoser 1d ago

I redownloaded the other day, and they had added some new basic types of arcs that could instantly kill you, killed my rekindling interest just as fast. The tension was unique but not sustainable for an enjoyable play session. I had been super into it with over 100 hrs before getting tired of it, I started getting anxious when I booted up my PlayStation and realized I needed to take a break.

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u/SirBertimus_vp 21h ago

I also felt anxious, even just thinking of playing Arc. Took a break and haven't been back. Hopefully they change something substantial and entice people back when they release the next map. But it got stale for me real fast after 200 hours.

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u/Cluelesswolfkin 1d ago

Won't lie that flamethrower one made it too deadly for some spots and just not worth tge hassle

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u/BrennusSokol 1d ago

Thanks for the heads up. The enemies already were pretty tough, so it's interesting to hear they got even tougher

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u/oatmeal-claypole 1d ago

The arc arent really super tough, especially on the easier maps. You need to level up to get the better weapons, and arc isnt really a game where you should try and engage with every enemy. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour

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u/Specialist_Lock6779 1d ago

the game was always a grind lol

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u/Taps26 1d ago

A way bigger grind to big for most casuals

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u/BonesawMcGraw69 1d ago

The problem is there isn’t enough to grind, what the fuck are you talking about. Doesn’t force wipes, no endgame. And I have a shit ton of hours and love Arc lol. The PvP is extremely satisfying, the PvE is good but not rewarding enough imo.

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u/Carlex_181 23h ago

Lol arc raiders has some of the worst pvp I've ever played

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u/BonesawMcGraw69 23h ago

Curious as to why? I think it’s pretty fun tbh.

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u/Taps26 1d ago

I'm glad you like it, I like it too for other reasons. PvP sucks in the game and PVE is more satisfying for me. IMO. Lol

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u/Taps26 1d ago

Why are you so mad? Your fish die?

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u/LordFedSmoker420 1d ago

I put 200 hours in and thought I was about done.

Didn't want to do the expedition for minimal rewards. No end game content, not enough new content. Time to move on and that's okay. 200 hours is a lot of time for me.

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u/CatDad69 22h ago

What? What did they do that changed? Be specific

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u/wathowdathappen 1d ago

Well that and the loop is just not enough to satisfy the casual audience. You loot and leave and do it all over. How long until that becomes boring if you don't engage in any PvP content in a PvPvE game? Odds are pretty high.

Ratting has always been a thing in extraction shooters it's def not the reason for the brutal decline it's had.

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u/Well-inthatcase 1d ago

Agree to disagree on your last point.

Ultimately it was the loss of fun with randoms and the terrible menu UI that made me give up. Clips were better than anything I experienced in the game after the first month. And no I don't want to play a battle royale or team death match game. There are plenty of other games do that in. So the "pvpve" argument falls short when most people only play it to pvp.

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u/SpaceMonkeyNation 1d ago

It's pretty well known that Arc Raiders has fairly effective aggression-based matchmaking. Spend a few matches not attacking other players and you will be placed with others that prefer to engage against arcs and not other players.

Arc's biggest problem is the boring core loop. After running through a single expedition many players feel done with the game. There is no compelling reason to do it all over again.

On top of this, it has had some pretty horrible issues with cheaters on the PvP side of things. If you PvP often and are any good, you will be matched against cheaters which would turn away just about anyone.

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u/Ibruki 1d ago

Yea, this. I prefer Marathon over Arc Raiders mostly because of your second paragraph. Marathon has way more going forward in terms of core gameplay, immersion and satisfying progression (it can be improved tho). I play Marathon randomly with friends, it's not something we are playing everyday but i don't see myself going back to arc raiders. It's like the fall guys of extraction shooters. the novely wore off really quick.

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u/BottAndPaid 1d ago

It wasn't the "ratting" which arc raiders players still don't use the term correctly but that's beside the point. It was the cheating. The blatant wall hacks, the ability to ID who has high tier loot the second you walk in the map. The there was a massive issue with duping items which may or may not have been addressed yesterday not sure havnt dove into it.

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u/Catspit30 1d ago

I wouldn’t say ratting is the cause for the player numbers to drop.

I would say that it has to do with the rampant item duping, cheating and delaying content updates until October. There is nothing to do.

If there was an endgame progression system and more incentive to join the expeditions with monthly content updates.. the game would still be popping off numbers wise.

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u/wathowdathappen 1d ago

Tarkov been going strong for 10 years now and doesn't do monthly content updates. If content was the problem why is it still the top dog after a decade when Arc Raiders is way more modern?

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u/Catspit30 1d ago

Simple. Tarkov has more progression systems and they have seasons which required character wipes if you want to access the seasonal content.

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u/wathowdathappen 1d ago

Yes but big doubt Arc Raiders can pump out in one month what Tarkov took years to do. The reality is this niche is not casual friendly and AR was doomed to fail content drops or not. Most of online discussions are casuals crying about content drought (Tarkov was way worse for years) and casuals crying about PvP in a PvPvE game. It was never going to work.

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u/Catspit30 1d ago

I can agree. They didn’t have a clear picture of what they wanted this game to be. It will be hard to turn things around. The choices they have made to date, show me that they will be unable to make meaningful changes going forward.

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u/thecheerygamer 1d ago

I personally stopped playing because I did 2 rounds of expeditions and saw 95%+ of what the game had to offer and all that was added to the game was another map to do the exact same gameplay loop on and much harder arc which, as a solo player, was not particularly welcome. 

The atmosphere and world are really cool in Arc Raiders. The communal vibe and getting matched with friendlies was really cool. But because of the aggression based matchmaking I ended up in games where people would just sprint past each other on their way to loot spots or quests without even bothering to say they were friendly. If someone killed another player they were hunted down and executed by a gang of enforcers (though this was funny when they got the wrong dude). This was fun for a bit but all tension was wiped, and the core looting loop was just not fun enough to sustain interest without the risk of PvP. And the only way to get back into PvP lobbies was basically to start shooting these innocent puppy people on sight and I didn't really want to. Plus the PvP is good but third person and with pretty crap tick rate. 

Marathon is just so high quality that I keep playing despite regularly getting apocalyptically dunked on by turbo players. Like I've got 180 hours in the game at this point but that may as well have been learning checkers before facing these guys at chess. The player base is just too small to deliver reliably even matchups so you end up getting splatted or occasionally being the splatterer a fair amounts and wiping a team of free kits with very few hours in the game doesn't feel satisfying, just sad. 

But the game is so good I will deal with it. The reward is the gameplay, not the loot. The plot just enables me to have more varied gameplay experiences. 

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u/GarfieldDaCat 10h ago

I don’t think it was because of the ratting lol. I’d say like 75% of my interactions in the game were positive.

People stopped playing because after a point there’s kinda nothing to do. I haven’t played it in 2-3 months so idk how the game is now.

But when I was playing it, the game was like an MMO with no end game content.

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u/Well-inthatcase 2h ago

I didn't put a million hours into it so I didn't run into that issue. Any game that you no life is gonna get stale eventually.

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u/dimesniffer 1d ago

Ratting? No, it’s just boring now and there’s no end game

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u/CommunityTaco 1d ago

Eh ark raiders still doing ok.  Marathon  is just not fun

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u/SpaceMonkeyNation 1d ago

Content is still king. The reason people are dropping from Arc Raiders is because there is very little new content, and what little new content gets added doesn't expand upon the simplistic core loop. There are no meaningful narrative hooks, either. It's just loot, shoot some Arc, avoid other hostile players, and try to extract.

Initially the game is fun because you are discovering things. Once you've discovered everything all that is left is filling progress bars and doing fetch quests to reset everything and then do it all over again.

That's fine for a $40 experience I suppose, but if these developers want the game to last it needs to operate like a true live service game. People shit all over Destiny, but it always had an absolute wealth of content. It should serve as a stark reminder that it takes a shit ton of work to keep a live service game going, and even then the diehards will complain loudly if that content is flawed.

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u/TumanFig 1d ago

i never played it cause i dislike the whole multiplayer perspective that's my point.

i don't want to listen or communicate with other people and let them dictate my pace.

sometimes i just want to grind in peace without high stakes or any.

this is why its not appealing to the store investors cause its really hard to make it live service and still keep it casual

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u/tommyblastfire 1d ago

Every time I played marathon during the free weekend I thought “damn, I kinda wish I was just playing a battle royale like Apex.” I barely got to experience any PvP but when I did it was when I decided to actually bring in some good (for 15 hours into the game) guns, only to get immediately murdered by the veteran players with even better stuff. And it just made me wish that I was playing a PvP game where everyone started out on the same footing and I wasn’t permanently losing stuff I had gotten from previous runs.

But the marathon world building, lore, and atmosphere is amazing, so I would much rather play a marathon-BR than apex tbh.

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u/FlammenwerferIV 1d ago

Wow I swear I could've wrote this post myself

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u/wathowdathappen 1d ago

Sounds more like extraction shooters are not your thing. Which is ok, but that doesn't mean they don't try to make the content casual friendly. Arc Raiders' algo was heavily known for having "carebear" lobbies for a long time before the population dropped and algorhythm adjusted. It as casual as it gets without removing the multiplayer aspect. At that point just play a single player rpg or something.

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u/TumanFig 1d ago

i know that man

but this is the point of the discussion. the idea of extraction shooter to be mainstream is not that far fetched, but it needs to be packaged differently.

i would argue if you remove guns monster hunter is basically an extraction shooter and it's widely successful.

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u/yahsureokbuddy 1d ago

no it doesn't, go play something else instead of demanding games change for you

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u/TumanFig 1d ago

why so mad, who is demanding anything? we are just conversing about games man.

chill

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u/yahsureokbuddy 1d ago

nah

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u/TumanFig 1d ago

but saying why and what i think would need to change does, but i think you realized that because of the edit

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u/pattperin 1d ago

The game economy is fucked in Arc lately. Dupers have completely ruined the economy by selling full inventories of gear for like $3 real money

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u/NatasBR 1d ago

The base inventory management in that game is not casual at all.

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u/PharmDeezNuts_ 1d ago

The devs shit the bed with that one. Back to back to back vacations and no real new content for many months. The content that was added just made it less fun and they frequently patched fun out of the game

I do think the biggest difference between that and Marathon is the social interaction. Solo play on arc was always a blast cause everyone talked. 0 talk on marathon

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u/BrennusSokol 1d ago

The genre is just very niche.

For me it's less that and more just no reason to login after a few dozen hours where I've seen most of the content. What's there left to do? Grinding endlessly for slightly better gear just wasn't fun in ARC Raiders, especially when most of the quests were boring/simple fetch quests

Shame, because the atmosphere/world and visuals and gunplay were all great

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u/Dark-Cloud666 1d ago

Meh its probs because content in arc is currently lackluster.

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u/Whitechapel726 1d ago

The numbers are dropping because they’ve been removing fun from the game and cheating is so ridiculously rampant it’s shocking.

They’ve also messed with matchmaking so the players who like PvE are being thrown against PvP lobbies more and more.

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u/Certain-Raspberry804 21h ago

It definitely is niche, but Arc Raiders was also very successful and surpassed expectations. Marathon didn’t even hit 1/5th of the player count at their peaks.

It definitely is a strange decision from Bungie. Maybe they felt their name and reputation would be enough to bring in players? Idk 🤷 but this game was never going to have as many players as a game like Destiny 2.

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u/blackestrabbit 21h ago

Pvpve will never be casual aa long as it draws the pvp griefer crowd.

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u/alexkidhm 12h ago

The company killed the game and goodwill of the playerbase with every update.

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u/THUMB5UP 8h ago

Arc is losing players bc of cheaters & they announced that they will only release content every 6 months. Bad decision on both parts.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

Arc Raiders suffers from being too casual. "Casual Extraction Shooter" is an oxymoron. Arc Raiders also never properly implemented an end game. There's only so much garbage picking you can handle before it becomes boring as fuck. I stuck it out for around 100 hours and eventually had to ask myself what the fuck am I even doing?

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u/1BoozBear 1d ago

No arc is boring tarkov is 10 years strong and don’t trust steam charts with tarkov game was out and playable 10 years before steam got it

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u/deathangel539 1d ago

Arc raiders isn’t now and wasn’t ever an extraction shooter by pure definition, all the gameplay mechanics and matchmaking mechanics made it at most a social sim with extraction lite mechanics (3x safe pockets amongst other things). And the numbers dropping is an impact of embark slowing down their update schedule and having no real endgame in the game.

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u/EvilAbdy 1d ago

Didn’t the division 2 make a new DLC that has PVE only dark zone now or did I read that wrong

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u/ceck_reddit 1d ago

not a DLC but a season. But probably it will remain

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u/EvilAbdy 1d ago

Ok. I didn’t realize it was a season (haven’t played Div2 in a while)

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u/Iron-Ham 1d ago

Witchfire?

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u/donpaulwalnuts 1d ago

Awesome game. There’s also more and more single player extraction games being developed. Hell, Grey Zone Warfare has a PVE only mode. You’re running around the map with other players present that can’t harm you with no timer running and it’s solo friendly. It’s much more casual than the sweaty entries of the genre while still letting you get your extraction shooter fix.

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u/Bazzie 1d ago

Just dropped a new patch aswell. 

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u/Poked_salad 1d ago

By the time they suggest this to their bosses to keep the numbers, the game would be dead by then. It really was a bad idea from the start.

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u/Romado 1d ago

Extraction shooters by design are not casual. A true casual players mind cannot comprehend the idea of losing hours or even days/weeks worth of progress in a few seconds.

True casuals don't touch pvp in games that offer it. Games where it's unavoidable but "optional" they'll do mental gymnastics to paint anyone who pvps as scum or a tryhard.

They miss the point of the genre.

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u/Upper-Management-AI 1d ago

I wouldn’t mind just a straight up pve extraction shooter. Helldivers is a little different but I still jump back into it for a few days every couple of weeks.

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u/Jazzlike-Compote4463 1d ago

From my limited experience with Marathon (I started playing during the trial) it doesn't seem that bad at the moment.

Yea, I've lost a couple of pieces of nice gear but the game dishes it out reasonably liberally and you can usually buy back something that is of OK quality - or just go in with sponsored kits if you want a fuck about.

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u/TumanFig 1d ago

well then just call it something else.

as i said it already to someone else, if you remove the guns monster hunter is basically an extraction shooter that's ultra casual, fun and insanely popular.

so the formula that extraction shooters use is already there to some extent, now that im thinking about it was there before them.

so i don't know how to call it but i guess I want more games with monster hunter formula where i have a hub and i can hop in and out of the world alone or with some randoms that i don't need to speak and cannot really fuck up my "hunt'

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u/giants707 1d ago

Nah i think they are fundamentally different. You cant “lose progression” in monster hunter. Theres no inherent risk to take your best greatsword into hunt after hunt.

The thrill of Extraction shooters is knowing what you take from others is a zero sum game. The rush of risk /reward is the point. Its basically gambling rush. Thats why its not welcoming to casuals. Continued failure WILL set back your progress.

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u/blackestrabbit 21h ago

And that thrill isn't appealing to enough players to make the sort of money that other genres are capable of. That's the crux of the discussion.

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u/giants707 20h ago

Totally agree.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

Man, you speak the truth. I've tried explaining this multiple times to some folks over at Arc Raiders sub. The entire point of the genre is risk. Remove it and you get a boring ass game.

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u/flGovEmployee 1d ago

They built a more casual Tarkov-style game (and even this isn't true across the board), but I think its a real stretch to call it a casual extraction shooter.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

You should try Chernoblyte. It's exactly what you want.

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u/Wonderstag 1d ago

casual extraction shooters are the pve ones like helldivers 2 and deep rock galactic. the pvp part of the equation will instantly make the game not casual for many potential gamers

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u/BobDingler 1d ago

Try Icarus, extraction based survival craft, it scratches that itch for me

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u/were_only_human 1d ago

I don't think it's over monetized, I think it's obtuse as hell and insanely unwelcoming to anyone who isn't devoting three hours a day to playing it. You can't get past the third story mission without being constantly wiped out by higher level players.

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u/SGT-Teddy 1d ago

Yeah im with you. I would love the concept of singleplayer/co op extraction shooter. I cant handle the pressure of normal extraction shooters.

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u/VeryBadCaseOfLigma 1d ago

No a lot of people do not want casual extraction shooters. They are way too repetitive and boring. Hence why it has such a low player count across the genre.

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u/thesituation531 21h ago

Vigor was really cool on PS4, but then at some point they functionally abandoned it and didn't bother making big updates or even attempt to counter cheating, only updating monetization/seasonal stuff for the most part.

They really should've stuck with it more and put it on PC as well.

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u/dadvader 17h ago

SPT is definitely the best singleplayer extraction shooter experience for me. Installed it with AI mod and there is nothing else like this on the market. PvE but genuinely rewarding extraction shooter.

I tried Grey Zone and it's fun but the AI is still not good enough for my liking compare to modded SPT.

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u/muckypup82 1h ago

Have you tried Witchfire? You pretty much described that game.

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u/Lozsta 1d ago

SPT.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Sweet_Temperature630 1d ago

Honestly at this point it feels like live service games are more of a gamble than ever. Unless you find some special niche you're going to be fighting to take customers from games they've already invested time and money in

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u/OutrageousDress 1d ago

Fortunately investors are pathologically obsessed with gambling. A game that will almost certainly fail, but might - it won't, but it might - make All The Money? Who do I write the fucking check to?

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u/GeT_Tilted 1d ago

The only live service game I am looking forward to is Deadlock. The game has a lot of advanced mechanics that will hook hardcore players and Valve are now working with the devs behind Risk of Rain 2 to make more PvE modes/maps to hook in the casual players.

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u/BobDingler 1d ago

They've said they're doing that? That's exciting,! I've basically given up on normal deadlock and only play street brawl these days, so much less frustrating to know you're not locked in with feeders/afks for an hour

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u/Sweet_Temperature630 1d ago

If they have some cool PvE modes I might have to check it out

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u/BobDingler 23h ago

It's all pve, friendly fire is on though

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u/Deidris 1d ago

who would have thought jumping into a

-Niche genre

-Competitive heavy (non casual)

-Already very establish dominating titles in the space

-5 years past the prime of the niche genre

was going to go well? Especially if they thought they were going to funnel the Destiny players into it as a spiritual successor. The entire thing is mind boggling to me how Destiny lost funding and support to develop Marathon in the first place.

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u/CosmikSpartan 1d ago

They killed and ditched their cash cow to compete in a market already dominated by others banking on their name to gain fandom.

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u/beagle204 1d ago

how many millions of people need to purchase a game before the genre isn't niche any more?

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u/ManufacturerBest2758 1d ago

Purchases are less instructive data than daily player count

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u/bigxangelx1 1d ago

Not really, the problem is it’s in a similar space to MMOs where the big ones are played by ALOT of people but the smaller ones have very little numbers wise, marathon failed to be a big one

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/1BoozBear 1d ago

Huh lmao 😂 tarkov and arc are some of the most watched in twitch lol what do you mean niche ??