Many extraction shooters play very similarly and therefore get boring quickly, but a system in Marathon could be really interesting.
A really good shooter can keep me engaged for months or even years. Whether PvE or PvP, fast-paced and action-packed or tactical and thoughtful – I just enjoy playing shooters. But those who know me understand that I don’t have any fun in extraction shooters.
Most of the time, I uninstall these games when I’m killed by a player and lose all my loot to someone who played much worse but had significantly better gear. It annoys me when a player wins simply because they had more time to play in the current wipe.
Furthermore, I often find the progression system in extraction shooters boring. I just don’t find it appealing to play to level up trader reputation, unlock new quests (which then only let me gather random loot again), or recover lost gear.
If I want to play PvP, I usually turn to tactical or arena shooters – competitive games where everyone has the same starting conditions and a death is not equivalent to a loss of progress, but rather part of the match flow.
A system in Marathon brings fresh air
In Marathon, it is possible at any time to revive a fallen runner, provided the opponents allow it. If you lose a gunfight, you are first ‘injured’, meaning downed, but not out yet. Once an opponent delivers the final blow, you are dead, but you leave behind a kind of sports bag that your teammates can use to revive you. You are only completely dead and cannot return if your entire team has fallen.
In competitive shooters, death is something that inevitably occurs. Depending on the strategy, it is not necessarily bad for a player to die. What matters is that they have fulfilled their tasks and goals as well as possible up to that point. Possible tasks depend on the game, such as destroying or preventing enemy utility, or taking crucial time from the opponents. Another important element is the so-called ‘refrags’, which refer to a fundamental concept that teams follow in games like Rainbow Six: Siege, Valorant, or Counter-Strike.
What are frags and refrags?
Frags are kills. An entry frag is the first kill that a team achieves, often to break the opponents’ defense. Refrags are essentially revenge kills.
Example: If I die, the opponent scores a frag. My teammate then shoots my killer in the same situation. That is a refrag. The time between a frag and a refrag is usually only a few seconds.
In competitive shooters, refrags are an important step in a team’s strategy and should be possible in almost any situation. To achieve this, it is important to have crossfire on the opponent. This should always be considered in the positioning of players. If an opponent is then attacked from two different directions due to crossfire, they can at most get one kill unless things go particularly badly. The second player then gets the refrag.
In extraction shooters, however, it is usually disadvantageous to rely on a refrag during your approach, as each player loses their gear and loot upon death. You are left with the option to watch the remaining teammates until the end of the run. So you want to avoid death. Marathon offers us more possibilities there.
Revives as a tactical element
Marathon indeed has this innovative approach to reviving, which allows us to utilize the principle of refrags known from tactical shooters. I can attack and take out an opponent in a strong position with my teammates, as long as we proceed cleverly. It’s not even a big deal if I die during the process, as long as my teammate gets the opponent.
This can also be a decisive counter against players with significantly better gear. We need to separate them, take them on one at a time in crossfire, and have our teammates refrag. Then skill and good teamwork may even be more important than investing a lot of playtime and farming god gear.
How well this ultimately works will only be shown when Marathon is actually out. In any case, I am curious whether it is truly feasible gameplay-wise as I imagine. If not, Marathon could lose me as a player quickly because then it may just be one of many extraction shooters again – and that’s one of the 2 shooter genres I don’t want to see anymore. Or as I said 2 years ago: There are only 2 types of new successful PvP shooters, and both are bad
