An expert is sure that the new game from the Destiny developers will fail, and the latest allegations play only a small role in that.
Who is the expert?
- Paul Tassi is a U.S. journalist and author who writes for the English-language magazine “Forbes”.
- He is very familiar with Destiny and regularly writes about the loot shooter. It’s also natural that he covers the studio’s new game, Marathon.
- Furthermore, Tassi is closely connected with individual employees at Bungie and claims to have some friends at the studio.
Now Tassi has written a 1,600-word article on Forbes and published a related video on YouTube, in which he explains why, in his opinion, it is already over for Marathon – even though the game won’t be released until September 2025.
Expert judges that the game concept makes no sense
What does the expert say about Marathon? Paul Tassi is convinced that it is already too late for Marathon to become a successful game. He splits his reasoning into 5 sections:
- The game concept
- The gameplay
- Price and content
- Plagiarism incident
- A possible postponement
First, he criticizes the general idea underlying the game: a casual extraction shooter. Tassi believes that an extraction shooter is not interesting for most casual players. The idea of losing all your gear and loot upon death is simply not a casual-friendly game principle. And gamers who enjoy games like Escape from Tarkov prefer the hardcore experience of the shooter. Everything about Marathon seems too casual to them, including aspects like time-to-kill or reviving teammates.
The gameplay itself is also a problem, especially the idea of integrating heroes into an extraction shooter. It strikes him as an experiment to make the own game something special, but it has made the game worse. The abilities of the runners, such as wallhacks and complete invisibility, would simply be far too strong in an extraction shooter.
Moreover, the game is not fun for Tassi when playing solo. Therefore, you have to successfully convince 2 friends to buy the game, as playing with random teammates is a coin toss whether it will be fun or not. However, the game launches with too little content for the price, which rumors suggest could be around 40 euros, to successfully convince friends.
Plagiarism incident is the final nail and a postponement is no salvation
What does he say about the plagiarism incident? Last week, it was revealed that the Marathon alpha contained designs that came from an independent artist. Bungie admitted to stealing the artist’s work but claimed that a former employee was to blame.
Tassi is convinced that this is the final nail for Marathon. The “unique art style” was the one thing Marathon received praise for. Now it is impossible to talk about the style without mentioning the plagiarism incident.
For the expert, it is now certain that a postponement cannot save the game anymore. There wouldn’t be enough changes to the gameplay to make it more attractive to more players and change the fate of the shooter. Nevertheless, he is convinced that a postponement is currently the only option. Cancelling the game after over 5 years of work is simply out of the question.
How should Tassi’s statements be classified? Like Paul Tassi, we at MeinMMO are also extensively engaged with the current situation of Bungie and Marathon and will also work through our assessment in detail – after all, Destiny has been an important part of our reporting for years. Here, however, we share an initial assessment from our shooter editor Dariusz.
This is what Dariusz says: I can agree with Paul Tassi on many points. I particularly share the assessment of the game concept. Extraction shooters simply have very punishing gameplay. You have to be prepared to die repeatedly, and each death means losing gear. Therefore, players must be attentive while playing to avoid losing their progress due to negligence. Players who want to game for half an hour in a sleepy state after work do not want to lose their hard-earned loadout because of a careless mistake.
For some players, this also leads to the so-called “gear fear”, meaning the fear of losing good gear. Instead, players only take relatively “useless” gear and thus never play the game as intended. In some cases, a game is even not continued because of the fear of not being “fit enough” to start another run. I know this from a roguelite with extraction mechanics: In a game on Steam, I only have 4 attempts to save the world – and now I’m afraid to play it
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