Asmongold TV - Bungie's new game is done.. | Asmongold

Episode Date: June 29, 2025

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The article is written by Paul Tassie, and he's been a bungee, I'm not going to say fanboy, but he's played bungee games and like Destiny Games a lot, right? He's been into the games a lot. He makes an article, he says, it's just over for Marathon. This is Marathon right now, guys. This is it. When Paul Tassie is saying you're done, it's really done. If he's saying a bungee game is done, it's bad. I tried to put this off for a while now, giving Marathon the benefit of the doubt in terms of fixing what ails it, maybe snagging an audience that's large enough to make it at least sustainable, but no, it's over. I can't do this anymore. This probably has always been true, but the events of the past week have cemented it. I will get into the live stream and the

plagiarism and all of this later and what's currently going wrong, but the future does not look bright. Gentlemen, not looking bright is only the beginning. I'm telling you guys, like this is really, really, really bad. I think the game might actually be cooked. Bungee is cooked. This is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. If you guys do not delay this game, you know what, don't. It makes for far better content. It's a heck of a lot more entertaining

the marathon. I'll tell you that right now. They just got caught red-handed, lifting art from some rain. That was one of the worst things about Assassin's Creed Shadows is the fact that it came out. Do you know how many videos

I made about that game? And then it finally comes out and then it's over? That's sucked, man. I hate it when video. games come out. Random artist on Twitter and just throwing it into Marathon. The funny thing is this isn't even the first time that these guys have gotten caught

doing something like this before. It's so lazy. It's so scummy. It's so blatant. It's the fourth time. And it shows how little creativity the studio has left and how hard and fast they're trying to rush Marathon out the gate. I played Marathon.

And I can say with absolute confidence, it's not going to work. Nope. It doesn't stand a chance. the thing is that I was on vacation when Marathon came out but when I saw that Shroud didn't even play it for a day I was like wow holy shit understand the audience they don't understand the game

they don't understand the genre and it's so lowfully uninspired that it makes a lot of sense as to why they're just copying things that other people are doing and in some cases copying their art I guess was it not maybe not Shroud or somebody else like but either way It was like one of those people, it might have been like Lyric or somebody like that. Like her, I don't know, might have been somebody else. He played it for a bunch of days. Maybe I'm thinking somebody else.

That's as well. You compare this to a game like Arc Raiders and the contrast between the two of them couldn't be any more clear. So today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the allegations against Bungie and their artwork and also the pitiful reception of Marathon. They are not going to beat the Concord allegations. Oh. Bungee seems to have a very close relationship. They cannot be Concord 2 anymore. Now they're Art Raiders.

It's just better. You know what this guy looks like? He looks like a really, really badly done AI version of an androgynous version of a fucking, what's his name from Guardians of the Galaxy 1? Rodon or something like that. That guy that like, you know, yeah, Ronan. Yeah, Ronan. Yeah, bro.

Like a soy version of Ronan. At least over the last few years, one of the first instances we saw of this was actually back in 2021 for the Witch Queen expansion of Destiny 2, where Twitter user relay 314s fan art of Zivu or Roth was used one for one in game without permission or notification.

So this is the first time that they had done it. Okay, right. It's not a dude, though. If you can't immediately tell the gender of the characters in a video game, video game is going to be garbage. That's the new rule, gentlemen. If it is not immediately evident and completely obvious

what the gender of the characters are, you are dealing with an American brainwotted, brain-rotted Western studio that thinks making androgynous characters is appealing. And if you have already reached the level of rot that thinking androgynous characters is what audience wants, the whole game is going to be trash. And in the life...

Because it's made by trash. Expansion, it happened again. Julian Falona's artwork was lifted and used inside of a cutscene. And again in 2024, when Bungi collaborated with Hasbro to make a Nerf replica of the Ace of Spades Pistol from Destiny 2,

this time lifting the entire design from the artist Tofu Rabbit, aside from a recolor and some minor cosmetic changes. They just took that one for one. In every one of these cases, Bungy pointed the blame to a third party contractor that they had outsourced their work to, resolved the issues quietly, and then compensated the artist.

Actually, as we speak, Bungi is in the middle of an active lawsuit with writer Kelsey Martinu, who alleges that Destiny 2's Red War campaign in 2017 and the curse of Osiris expansion copied elements from his sci-fi story. This one is like kind of okay. This is like, you know what? This is, it's like, again, it's like what I said about how. how whenever you take a Photoshop text and the first time you use Photoshop and you apply every different like filter to it, like bold, background overlay, you know, like imprints, everything on it,

you put all of them at the same time. Published on WordPress between 2013 and 2014. These claim similarities in the name of the Red Legion, the antagonist motivations, and several narrative elements like a celestial entity, the use of flame throwers, and a consciousness transfer. Bungy filed a motion to dismiss the case, but the judge ended up rejecting it, citing insufficient evidence due to Bungy's inability to provide a

playable version of the allegedly plagiarized content. Wow. And that's all because the Red War and Curse of Osiris expansions don't exist anymore. They're part of content that Bungi had vaulted. Is it who the fuck wants to play like a bitch with a microwave on her head? What, he retarded? Who thought this was a good idea?

You stupid? Like, what? Fuck your time? Fucking is. removed from the game, then deleted all the files altogether for reasons that can never fully be explained. This was the same move that alienated a huge portion of their player base. Bungi removed content from the game that players had paid for, claiming that they needed to do it to get more memory space for future expansions.

And I'll be honest with you guys, as a player who owned that content, there is nothing more satisfying than watching this come back to bite them in the ass. And now here we are in 2025, and Bungie has still not learned their lessons. Nobody wants to look at this. This is weird, bro. Like, look at this. This is so stupid. Like, who does this appeal to?

This is gross, man. Like, ugh. Marilyn Manson? No, that's not true. Bro, Marilyn Manson in, like, the 90s? I'm not gay, but he was a really attractive guy. He was. He was a really good-looking guy.

It's not even close. He was an artist. And two, also, known as Anti-Real or at Anti-Real in Leedspeak has called them out once again, this time for lifting their artwork and using it without permission in Marathons Alpha. These accusations aren't vague. They were direct, specific, and backed up with visual evidence. On Twitter, they shared images and wrote, The Marathon Alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017. Bungie is of course not obligated to hire me when

making a game that draws overwhelmingly from the same design language I have refined for the last decade. But clearly my work is good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without any pay or attribution. This is also after they said that it was all a mistake, Bungee says this is a mistake, after multiple people, including the person who runs the art for the game, has followed this individual on Twitter for a long period of time predating this event occurring. I don't have the resources nor the energy to spare to pursue this legally, but I have lost count of how many times a major company is deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or steal my work rather than to write me an email. In 10 years, I've never made a consistent income from my work, and I'm tired of designers.

You know what I find to be even funnier about that is that I bet paying some random Twitter artists would have been cheaper than paying the designer. Like, they could have probably just paid this person less money and you would have had the same thing done. but you go with some industry designer that copy pastas something from Twitter like it's really you're paying more money to get a knockoff version of something instead of just buying the real thing

companies mood boarding and parasiting my designs while I struggle to make a living another Twitter user pointed out that Joseph Cross the art director at Bungee follows anti-reel on Twitter and asks if there might be a connection the artist had responded saying he's followed me for a few years and a few others from Bungee never heard any communication.

Just add insult to injury. Mainstream media outlets began circulating fake quotes from the artist, attempting to sensationalize the story further by fabricating statements like, I'm completely floored. This is my full-time job. Insane fake quote? I sell these posters online. They're not obscure.

A major company is deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or trace than license or commission the work. This didn't come from the artist. And using fake quotes to farm clicks on top of an artist that's already being a- If you're fake quoting somebody for something that they said, like, you do not hate journalists enough. You do not. Boyd it is a special kind of vial.

So dishonored. Now, if things weren't sketchy already, just two weeks ago before these allegations went public, Joseph Cross, the art director for Bungee, posted on Twitter about how excited they were to work with Prupa Hosk, a brand and design agency that Bungee had brought on to help with visual development, identity, custom typography, and ARG campaigns for Mary.

This almost feels like a preemptive PR buffer as if they know that these accusations might start to surface and they were preparing to have a scapegoat just in case. But let's be real here. These third party agencies are just a shield. Bungy uses them because they know most gamers are never going to remember their names. The public backlash will hit Bungy, but the legal and creative blame will just get pushed onto somebody else. Bungy writes the checks when they get caught. And the key word there is when because these are only the cases that made it to public attention.

how many other ones never got noticed. I mean, this has been going on for over five years now, and I have a really... Yeah, what do you think the odds are that the only cases of stealing art were the ones that were discovered? A hard time believing that Bunchy somehow, some way, keeps managing...

Coincidentally, higher art thieves over and over again. The common denominator here, in every single one of these situations, isn't the freelancers or third-party vendors, it's Bungy. So why does this keep happening? why? That's a good point.

You keep hiring all of these people, but you keep getting the same result at a certain point, how does this keep happening to just you? Do they keep doing this? Well, that's because they just don't have the time or the talent anymore. Bungee has laid off aggressively in recent years.

A lot of the talent that they let go were key contributors to games like Halo, Destiny, and Destiny. Destiny 2. And with Destiny 2 in decline and pressure from Sony mounting ever since they acquired Bungy in 2022, they simply do not have the same creative force behind their projects anymore. They are rushing Marathon and other content out the door to meet deadlines and deliver returns. And when time runs out and creativity is thin, people take shortcuts. And honestly, that makes a lot of sense because Marathon feels like a game that's being shoved

out the door ready or not. Bungee has done almost nothing to engage with their audience before the release of the closed alpha. And then their entire role, out of the game has been messy. The initial teaser had some intrigue. The whole, yeah, I remember the initial video of Marathon looked kind of cool and I was a little bit excited for it. And then everything after that, I mean, it just, the vibe of it originally, like, was kind of good.

But then when they started showing the characters and everything, bro, it was cooked. It was cooked. In the cinematic trailer, people like the A&G. Advertising is good advertising. Well, that's, you know who says that? A person who doesn't work in advertising. How'd that work for Concord? The elements in the visual direction,

but the gameplay trailer absolutely tank. As the time of this writing, has 24,000 dislikes. Most of the comments are flaming the game. They've also delivered nothing but mixed messaging. They told Destiny 2 PVE players that Marathon isn't for them, despite the fact that it's their loyalty time and spending

that funded bungee's... Well, this might be something like, I remember everything, as usual. Do you remember when Bungy after a while and they focused, tested marathon around a bunch of, like, escape from Tarkov streamers? And all of the escape from Tarkov streamers said, like, yeah, we don't really think this game is very good. And then, like, two months later, they were, like, releasing it. Remember that? Yeah.

They all hated it? Yep. in the first place. Instead of honoring their core audience, they are chasing a new one, one they don't even understand in a genre that they've never even developed in before. It's yet another case of a studio abandoning

what made them successful in favor of mimicking what's trendy. And honestly, what else would a mimic do other than copy everything else around it? We are going to see a lot more of this, a lot more. All these companies that have been complaining about rising development costs, all these layoffs that we've seen, that is all pressure that is being laid on top of these designers and artists.

The more that they have them making these cookie cutter games and these copy paste projects, the less time and resources and experience they have to be able to make anything, the less creative freedom they have, well, the more likely they are to start cutting corners. And part of that is because they're just trying to save time more than anything else, but the other part of it is they just don't care. That's why you see stuff like this. We see this with workers that are just phoning it in for a paycheck

because they feel like they're forced to do the work, because they feel wholly uninspired by it, because they're not being led properly, and as a result, you get something that is uninspired, and you get something that most of the times ends up being plagiarized. Soon. Soon it's going to happen. That's right. Journalism is going through the same thing.

Games journalism specifically is going through the same thing. After the Polygon video, I actually had some writers reach out to me, and they said, you have no idea how bad it is for us right now. All of these companies have basically made it where, you know, we have $20 an article you have to put out 50 articles a week you can only talk about very specific games

only the biggest games and you can only write about it in a very specific way. And that's the reason why we get a lot of the writing that we do. Yes. And I think that's a fitting description for what Marathon is because they're under those exact same pressures in that exact same situation right now where they're being forced to make a game

that I don't think that they actually want to make. Sure, there's probably a few people that are there that are all about it, but it's not an entirely team. effort, I don't think. Yeah. And people don't realize, I don't think they're taking it seriously, that if Bungy does not deliver with Marathon, they are done.

This is it. This is the only thing they have left for them because I disagree with that. I think that Bungi's got another one in them, even if Marathon fails because of how much studio, like, kind of, like, kind of like value they've built up over the years. I think that they do, they've got another one in them. They can make Destiny 3. But if Destiny 3 fails, then, yes. Yeah, they're cooked.

Like, you usually don't get cooked with one game. You get cooked with like two, two and a half to three and a half games. Sony has invested too much money in them for too little return, and they are desperate for a live service hit. And if bungee's not the one to give it to them, that's not going to work out for them. They have wasted billions of dollars at this point trying to get their own live service hit. And I played marathon.

It's not it. Yeah, it's not going to happen. with better competition that's out on the market, with better competition that's right around the corner that delivered an alpha at the same time as yours, it's just not going to work out. This is going to be a last-ditch effort, a Hail Mary, with nobody there to catch it.

Now, in a lot of cases, when I'm feeling off about a game, whether it's from the previews or the early footage, I tend to second-guess myself. Maybe I'm being overly critical. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks. Maybe I just need to get hands-on with it to see the full picture. Then I played Marathon and Arc Raiders back-to-back. And now...

I'm the kind of person. I'm a little bit different. I assume that if my first impression of the game, if I think the game is bad in five seconds, the game is bad. That's it. Instantaneously. Because, again, if you can't nail five seconds, how the fuck are you going to nail 50 hours?

And every once in a while, I get it wrong. But I usually don't. I was being way too generous with Marathon. Let me just go ahead and throw a flag on the play right now and say it outright. Marathon is one step removed from Concord. The only thing that this game has going for it is the Marathon name in a mildly interesting universe. Beyond that, this is one of the most blatant, uninspired, trend-chasing corporate pasteboard games that I have ever touched.

Did you guys watch that gameplay? Like, go back and watch this gameplay again. Platent, uninspired, trend-chasing corporate pasteboard games that I have... Jesus, bro. Going for it is the marathon name in a mildly interesting universe. Beyond that, this is one of the most blatant, uninspired, trend-chasing corporate pasteboard games that I have ever touched. I would go as far to say that Dragon Age the Veilgard had more flavor than Marathon.

This is factory. Yeah, because Dragon Age Vailguard was at least Rainbow Sherbert. This is just plain yogurt. Sealed boredom. There is nothing. in this game that stands out. Not one mechanic, not one system, not one moment where I sat back and thought to myself,

damn, this is what makes marathon special. They took the basic template of an extraction shooter, filled it with loot that you don't even care about, slapped on some faction rep grinds for the illusion of depth, jammed in some Apex Legends hero abilities, copied on Destiny 2's gunplay and dropped it all into a flat, lifeless world where everything looks the same.

And when I say everything looks the same, I mean literally, the environments are, so homogenous and color drain that I found myself disoriented all the time, not because it was clever map design, but because it all just blurs together. I wish I actually had more to tell you guys about the gameplay loop, but I was mentally checked out within 10 minutes of firing this game up. The matches felt empty. The tutorial was like an afterthought. There was no pressure, no tension, no reason to care. It's the kind of game that you forget the moment that you close it. There's another big component to this, which is that extra.

Extraction shooters, by definition, are hardcore games. You're never going to have an extraction shooter game that's going to have a mammalian concurrent players, right? At least not in the near future. Any game that has negative progression that's that extreme is never going to be massively appealing to an average player because average players don't have that amount of time to invest into it. That's it. Arc Raiders incoming. Arc Raiders is going to be a popular game. And I'm sure people will play it at the beginning.

But I think it will level off the same as every other extraction shooter game and every other extraction game does, even like dark and darker. And it will have a narrow but dedicated audience. And I think that a narrow but dedicated audience is great. But whenever you're a studio like Bungy, you have to, like you're so big, you have to, you have. have to target a more mainstream audience than just like a very small amount of people like that. I can make it that far. And I am not the only one that feels this way. A former Bungy designer, Vince, who now goes by Fractal Grove on YouTube,

specifically called out Bungy's art direction. He pointed out to the overuse of cool colors, especially blue tints, and explained how it creates a psychological sense of fatigue. It drains players. Compare that to something like Ultra Kill, which uses aggressive red. oranges and yellows to generate adrenaline, danger, and excitement. That's color theory 101.

This is basic art philosophy. Am I the only person? I feel like both of them are fatiguing, but they're just fatiguing from different ways, right? It's like anything that just continually has the same theme constantly is just boring to watch after a while. A studio that once helped define visual spectacle for shooters seems to have just forgotten it.

But honestly, what really... even think about like for example in halo right they made halo um think about how much different truth and reconciliation was than uh i don't know the the maps in like the open on the beach right i mean i think actually that's all part of the same level like for that example or like the last level in the game right pillar of autumn yeah exactly silent cartographer yeah like it's totally totally different spectacle right totally different game and like the vibes like the things like the thing is that like if you look at this this is halo one let me see if i get a good image of this bro this shit was this shit went so hard this is i think this is the remake i'm pretty sure

but like this was insane how good this was even back then like you've got to remember this came out over 20 years ago this had absolute fucking aura like do you remember driving across the bridge like the light up bridge on the Warthog? Do you guys remember that? Yeah. It's still good? Yeah, no, it's still good. That's what's crazy about it.

Is it still good? Even now, that's the difference between like graphical fidelity and art direction. Is it this, these games had insane art direction. And also, by the way, back then, the graphics for this game were next level. like Halo for its time the graphics were fucking insane The field marathon for me was just general whiplash It's the same thing that I felt going from Baldur's Gate 3

To Starfield from Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 to a vowed It's that sense of expectation crash That realization that you're playing something With no soul after coming from something That was brimming with it Because just before I got into marathon I played Arc Raiders and that game That game gets it all

The moment you step into the world It commands your attention It is so breathtakingly beautiful. The lighting. It looks good. It just looks good. That's it. The detail, the sound design, it all works here.

You feel like an explorer that is cautiously surfacing to this hostile world. The sound alone becomes a mechanic. You crouch, listen, stop. You can hear these arc machines before you even see them. And you're avoiding fights because you don't want to blow your cover. That tension is constantly building with every single item that you collect. You're calculating your risk. Should I push for more lute?

Should I break for extraction? one wrong move, a metal detector, a flock of birds, and your position is blown. You jump, you panic, you play it smart because the game is pushing you to. And Arc Raiders actually understands the audience that it's going for. It's an extraction shooter. The thing is that Arc Raiders, I think, like, again, like, I watched a little bit of other people play it. I didn't play it myself. I think a lot of games are trying to recapture that vibe that the original PubG had.

because like there was a vibe that the original um you know like first map third person pub g had that i feel like no other br has been able to capture tarcov i just can't comment on for the midcore crowd and it nails that balance you have a pet rooster that goes out and brings back materials you can dismantle in the field so you can make room for more loot and yes unlike Marathon, Arc Raiders actually has proximity chat. Embark doesn't think that they need to insulate their players from one another for safe. Removing

proximity chat because you're worried about toxicity. Remember what I was saying before about like androgynous characters? That's it. That's all you need to hear. That's all you need to hear. That's it. It's over. Game's dead. It's a soy game. It's garbage.

50 reasons. It's like I said before, Emma, say it again. If you do not include proximity chat in a game about tension and human interaction, you do not understand the genre that you're making. And you know what proves that? My experience with it, I went into a match under-equipped. I didn't have any ammo with me. I got into a firefight, used all the rounds that were in my gun, and I bluffed my way out of it by role-playing as a grizzly man with a southern tone for some reason. I have the meds and the rounds to do this all day, walk away, and I'll let you off. And for whatever reason, the other player believed me. And they let me walk away

Funny enough, I bumped into somebody else at the extraction point, and I just told them the truth straight out. I have no ammo. I'm just trying to get my quest done. They let me extract, and we ended up joining up to play the next round together. That's what these games are about. That's why people play them. Emergent storytelling, player agency, memorable moments.

Now compare that to Marathon, a game where you're completely isolated in a world that's designed to be antisocial. It's ironic. Bungi helped define cooperative multiplayer in the modern era. No. Bungy brought cooperative online multiplayer to the mainstream audiences with Halo 2. Halo 2 mainstreamed online gameplay.

That was it. Like you had people playing CS on PC, but like I'm talking about mainstream. Everybody had fucking Xbox Live. that right there was the beginning. Like that was it, bro. Like, Halo 3 was it for me? No, Halo 3, Halo 3 refined it.

But like in two, think about that. In 2004, because Halo 2 came out in November 2004. Back then, even people were playing online. That's insane to think about. Literally over 20 years ago. ones that pretty much gave us land parties for the most part with the Halo Days. And now they're making a game that actively suppresses that connection. That speaks volumes.

And it's because Marathon isn't a product of inspiration or iteration. It's a live service mold that's filled with monetization systems. It exists to chase trends. It exists to tick boxes. It exists to sell, not be played. And that's the key difference between Bungee and Embark Studios right now. Yes, Arc Raiders and the finals are. or live service games, but they feel like games first.

Even the finals brought something. The entire premise of a live service game being the problem is invented by bad video games that have cynical design systems that use live service systems that are unfun. Live service is never the problem. It's never been the problem. The problem is bad design. It wasn't Overwatch.

It wasn't another call of duty clone. People may have moved on from the game. not topping the Steam charts, but you would be hard pressed to find players that hated it. It earned respect. Marathon won't earn a thing. Bungie is doing what so many studios are doing right now, iterating on monetization, not on gameplay. They're not refining systems. They're refining a storefront. They don't care if the experience is good. They care if you keep grinding, spending, and logging in. And I swear, I'm going to start making a new catchphrase after this one.

When you forget about the players, they forget about you. And they already have. Both Marathon and Arc Raiders had their limited Close Access test at the exact same time. Bungee could not keep players in the game. Meanwhile, Arc Raiders. Look at Marathons winning. See, it has one player. Yours was overflowing with demand.

Marathon bled players daily. The one player was, it was a lawyer from the Bungee legal department, and they were trying to find all the instances of stolen art. And the other guy that was also doing the same thing had to go home for the day. Arc Raiders had players begging for more.

They're still being. begging for more. The vibe shift in the gaming community is loud and clear. Nobody is interested in Marathon. Nobody cares. That conversation is over. And that is not a good sign for Bungy, especially when you consider how niche this genre already is.

Extraction shooters, by design, are not built for mass appeal. They are punishing high stakes and time insensitive games, not for casual audiences who do not have a lot of time already and just want to have fun. Yet here we are watching major studios throw their entire futures into this space convinced that they have found the next big live service cash cow. This is not just disconnected. It is completely delusional. Well, you just

look at the way they make the characters. That's it. You don't do that unless you're a retard. It's actually that simple. Yeah. I mean, like really, like, yeah, I mean, you can't even figure out the characters. You can't even make the characters look appealing.

You think you're going to be able to figure out a game? Fuck, no. seeing right now is the result of panic yeah but you're gonna come back with another tweet no a lot of people hated on me for this everybody this is when the marathon uh the the big video that they did came out and i said that the game was garbage because the characters weren't fuckable and everybody was mad at me and they said i was a gooner and i was like uh you know like a weirdo

a creep and everything and they're right but so am i yeah that's it doesn't matter literally doesn't matter. Like you, like whatever insult you can give doesn't matter. I'm still right. Like it's still true. And no amount of crying, insulting,

uh, you know, these like weird patronizing comments, not a single one of them is ever, ever going to make a dent in that reality. Publishers that are scrambling to try to predict whatever the next trend is, try to stake their claim before the gold rush ends. But instead of innovating or understanding what these genres and trends are,

they're just, pouring money into these things and making these watered down versions of games that only ever had niche appeal to begin with. And I think this is where Embark Studios really stands out because I genuinely do think that Arc Raiders has a bright future. Not just because the game is fun,

but because the team behind it is clearly smarter with their budget and more grounded in their expectations. The finals reportedly cost less than $100 million for them to make and there is no way that Ark Raiders blew past that number by much. It's lean, it's focused, and it's built for players who are actually going to play it.

But even still, I don't see the appeal here for the big publishers. This is a genre that has a ceiling. Most casual players are not going to be signing up to get dunked on in a high-stakes PVVP gauntlet. They do not want to spend hours grinding materials, building up gear, planning for some big PVE encounter, only to get... I'm one of those people, by the way.

Like, if I play an extraction shooter and then I lose my stuff, I don't want to play anymore. that's it i i just don't want to do that like i i even if it's my fault like i don't really care i just would rather do something else with my time like that's it like pub g well no because each thing in pub g was that like it was just each game was was separate yeah held ours too did a great job catering and casual players yeah and and it was just a waste of time yeah like for me i feel like when i can't make progress in a game and i especially like for like for for me, it's like losing progress

in a game instantly makes me feel like I'm wasting my time playing it. One shot across the map by some third party sniper while you're fighting a boss. Some players thrive on that risk. Some people really love that tension. Most people don't. You want to log in, have fun, make progress, and log

out. Extraction shooters do not respect that kind of time. I have tension. I have tension in my real life. I do not want tension in my video games. Absolutely not. Investment. They never have. Amelologic attention. I mean, just look at Escape from Tarkov.

That game essentially birthed this genre. It's considered a success and a gold standard for it, but it peaks at around 100,000 players a day. That's impressive for a hardcore niche title, but it's not the foundation. You want to build a $300 million live service behemathon. These studios think that they can expand their audience by softening the edges of these games

and making the experience a bit more casual. But that actually does the opposite effect. doing so, they're missing the point because the very thing. Exactly, yeah. The edge was the point. The loss was the point. People play these games because of that. That's the thing. It's like I can, I don't think that it's kind of like this is their weird way to say it, is that I always thought Assassin's Creed lost its way with Valhalla because Valhalla appealed to me as a player. I don't like stealth games. I think that they're boring. So if I'm playing a game and it's a stealth game and I'm enjoying it and I'm excited about it, then we've got a problem.

Things that make these games compelling, the risk, the tension, the player-driven stories don't translate well when you strip them down for mass appeal. You're not left with a broader audience. You're going to be left with no audience at all. That's right. And I think that's the real tragedy for Marathon, not that it's just a bad game, but it's a bad game. And look for example, Baldersgate 3.

They doubled down on being a niche game and it worked because it was a good game. born out of desperation. It's corporate wishful thinking and playable. Bellatro is another good example. Very niche game. Form. A studio chasing a trend it doesn't even understand in a genre that was never built

to carry that much weight. It's not the next big thing and it never will be. They need to stop trying to make the next big thing and they need to go back to making the thing that they think is cool. That's how this all started. That's where all of this came from.

That is the reason why Bungie left Microsoft and Xbox to begin with. They wanted to reach beyond Halo. They wanted to do something different. They did that with Destiny. Apparently, I don't think Bunch even wanted to make Halo Reach. It's just that like they kind of had to. And like that's why Halo Reach was like the last good game.

Right? They did. What was it that they did? Yeah, I thought that was their expectation. And they shackled themselves to it. Now they shackled themselves to just live service games altogether. I do not feel like they care about what they're making. nor do they have the talent or the leadership to even be able to try to achieve it.

I mean, the essence of this game is literally just a rip-off of a bunch of other games. They're not doing anything to iterate on it whatsoever. And on top of that, you're now stealing art from indie artists as well, or allegedly stealing art from indie artists as well. Kind of save myself. It's not even allegedly anymore. They literally admitted that they didn't. They literally said that they did it.

Delf on that one. But at this point, I mean, Just pay somebody else to make it. It's clear that you guys don't want to. I just don't see a world where this game succeeds. Not unless they push it back another two years and then approach it like it's Destiny 3. I know that sounds crazy,

but these guys should be working off of their strengths. They should be making a game for the audience that they already do have because you're going to... If they make Destiny 3, I'll play Destiny 3. I don't give a fuck about Marathon anymore. Like, I'll play Marathon when it comes out because it's like the new game that's coming out. but like I'm not going to get into it.

They get much higher buy-in from your players and also from other players as well. You should be working off of your strengths, your current customer base, and not this imaginary audience that you guys think you can go after, especially when you're charging a premium price. I'm sitting here and I'm like,

how is nobody made a true competitor to borderlands or the division? It's like those two games just exist out in the ether. And there's been a couple of ones, but they've been like really knockoff kind of titles. If one of these companies actually put their foot down and made something like those games, it could do well.

The only games that I know of, at least for live service games, is once human, which I think is a really cool concept. They have a lot of really cool stuff of that game. Games really fun to play, but still has a little ways to go. They got some stuff they need to work on with that.

I haven't played it for a while. Outside of that, the first send it? I talked to the devs with that game. Like, I met them. They're, they're smart. I like them. I mean, at the Q&A for the first descendant,

the most important question that was asked was why. It's a good question. Why one of the female characters' toenails aren't painted? That's right. The problem the first descendant also has is that basically every single girl looks the same. Like, there isn't a lot of body diversity. And I think there's a huge problem. with that is that like with a lot of gotcha games right you have the petite girls and you farm the guys that like

that and then you have the big titty girls and then you have the tall girls with like the you know the domi mommy girls and then you have the more muscular girls and pretty much every girl in the first descendant is just your traditional um you know korean swimsuit model which is like that's great but this is like 11 different flavors of vanilla. You've got to have different flavors of ice cream here. True? Yeah, I played the game a lot. We're so good. Good God, man.

Gooners can't keep it together. No. Anyway, tell me what you guys think about all of this. I hope you guys enjoyed the video. If you guys enjoyed the video, drop a comment down below, share it with your friends, share it on social media. Subscribe to the channel, like the video. Come follow me on Twitch.

Come follow me on Twitter. and I'll talk to you guys next time. Stay cool, stay righteous, stay safe. Catch you the next one. Family. Yeah, I mean, if you watch the Night Rancher, small boobs and fat-ass girls are also good. No, and the thing is that every single game like that has that, right?

And so, like, I'll give you an example. Like, I'll link you guys a video. Like, I totally agree with what he's saying. People that think Marathon isn't cooked after this are fucking delusional. Like, this made them look so, so fucking bad. The game release was awful. It was originally going to be NDA. They had to take it off of NDA because of how bad the reception was.

It was really, really not good. And I'm not seeing things improve at all. This is like watching a train. I'm not. I think Marathon is pretty much done. And it's been cooked since the gameplay trailer. Yeah, it has been. As soon as they started showing those characters and everything like that,

people were just fucking done with it, man.