This week: Finished the original Mass Effect for the first time ever, and wished I liked it more.
If the opening hours of Marathon's server slam playtest are any indication, Bungie's latest won't be the surprisingly cooperative extraction shooter Arc Raiders has become.
Marathon's combative norm isn't a bad thing. I point it out because it's an interesting contrast to my experience with Arc Raiders' pre-release playtests, during which pacifist lobbies were common even before that became the game's reputation. The same could happen for Marathon, but I don't think it will. I see a handful of reasons why PvP will be deeply rooted in Marathon:
Marathon's Runner shells revolve around PvP
It's impossible to ignore that Runner shells (classes) in Marathon are built with PvP in mind—stuff like wallhack abilities, cloaks, rocket barrages, and a passive that spots an enemy squad if you execute one of its members.
Some contracts are PvP-focused
An early contract I picked up from one of Marathon's factions calls for killing and dealing damage to other players—a direct incentive to engage in PvP. Embark deliberately avoided making PvP a requirement of its quests, but it did have PvP feats (side challenges) until a recent update.
The UESC isn't as interesting to fight (or avoid) as the Arc
This one's undoubtedly subjective, but I don't think the UESC as a faction will inspire impromptu teamups the way the Arc do in Arc Raiders. UESC bots are dangerous and to be avoided if possible, but their close-range attack patterns and proximity to buildings means other players typically can't assist you from a distance. The faction's humanoid form also makes it tougher to distinguish between player and NPC in the moment. Anything person-shaped that doesn't have a squad mark above its head is the enemy.
Other players look like bad guys
Thanks to the one guy I encountered today who was nice and chill, I got an up-close look at how strangers appear in Marathon. Bungie uses red (the universal color of evil) in several ways that suggest "shoot this guy":
- Players glow bright red intermittently
- Your reticle becomes red when aiming at them
- Their microphone symbol on screen is, you guessed it, red
With those visual cues, I wouldn't blame people for never assuming cooperation is an option.
There's no holster button
At least that I'm aware of. Your gun is out all times, eliminating one of the best tools players have in Arc Raiders to deescalate a situation. You can, however, switch to your knife.
It's an FPS
It's worth noting that Marathon might feel totally strange if you could holster your guns. This is an FPS, after all—folks are here to shoot stuff. On top of that, it's a Bungie FPS with cool, techy guns that feel amazing to fire. The most prominent object on your screen at all times is your gun.
I think that matters, psychologically, more than I usually care to consider. In Arc Raiders, you're not a pair of arms with a gun in its hands, but a full-bodied person who also sneaks, climbs, and rummages through desk drawers. "Action" has a broader definition in Arc Raiders, partially because you can watch your raider do things detached from violence itself, like ducking behind a wall and carefully dodging a Hornet's detection beam. In an FPS like Marathon, if you're not shooting it's kind of like you're not playing.
At least, that's my read on Marathon so far. Maybe the community will surprise me the same way it did in Arc Raiders, but if Marathon turns out to be a PvP-forward extraction shooter like Escape From Tarkov, that's cool too.
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