Video Gamers Podcast - Marathon Deep Dive – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Matt dive deep into Marathon, breaking down Bungie’s brand new release and sharing their honest thoughts. Is this one of the most exciting video games of the year, or does it fall short of expectations? We explore gameplay and what makes it stand out in today’s gaming landscape. From mechanics, those crazy colors and overall experience, we cover where it lands among modern video games. Don’t miss this gaming-packed episode of the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Marathon has been a long time coming and has gone through its share of trials and tribulations. But the game is out and we've been playing the heck out of it. Is it good? How does it fit into the extraction shooter genre? And can it coexist with Arc Raiders? Well, we're going to tell you whether Marathon is actually good, what makes it unique, and if it's worth your time and money to check out.

But before we get to that, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he's my medic extraordinaire. When he remembers to send out his med bots, it's Ryan. I don't like these wild accusations you're throwing out right now. I may forget from time to time to send out my med bots, but I always try to keep everybody stocked up. But also, if you send notes of encouragement to me, you get a bot first, for sure.

Ryan is easily bribable with who gets the first men bought seven minutes into the match when he remembers that, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to put these things on people. Oh, yeah, these are for other people. Here you go. Drop them some biomass, and it's yours. You're getting healing all right. Oh, yeah, there you go. All right. Well, that voice you heard, joining us, we've got a very special guest with us, a master of extraction shooters, because he told us he played a lot of escape from Tarkov. He's the infamous Falcon, but we call him friend. It's Matt.

Hey, guys, that was a lot nicer than I was expecting. I'm not going to lie. He threw me for a loop there. A tiny little jab at your, you know, your escape from Tarkov background, but, you know, we can't, we can't bring you on the show. your first time, Matt, and then just like mercilessly troll you. That's what I was expected, man. We would, right, Ryan? We would never do that. Never, ever, ever. I'm excited to be here, man.

Thank you for having me. Dude, I mean, honestly, we know it's always a little like intimidating for somebody to be like, hey, do you want to come onto this really, really successful podcast? Wildly successful, amazing. Being around millions of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We know it's tough, but we appreciate you coming on. The reason that we asked Matt to join us was literally he's been our squadmate for almost all of Marathon. Like, Matt, I know you've done a couple solo runs. I have done a couple solar runs. But I think other than that, you and I have pretty much been the like the consistent duo of people through, I mean, my 30 hours plus of marathon at this point. And then Ryan, of course, has joined us a really good bit, but not as much because he does this thing called

work a lot of times. And so, yeah, so we thought what better person to join us for this episode. Ace had zero interest in playing marathon. And we were like, well, that's fine. We don't, you know, don't play games that you know you're going to hate. So we asked Matt, and then Matt said yes. Yes. Well, with a little bit of bribing and things we won't talk about on air.

Yeah, it took some convincing. Ryan was in my DMs for a lot. He's like, dude, we're going to, we're going to get her Josh's skin. it's going to be such a good time and yeah i'm excited i had to pay them josh we're not going to do anything buddy i swear never yeah definitely oh gosh i do too worried me after what ryan pulled on me this morning i don't we're not getting into it ryan that's that was for the pre show that was for the pre show but ryan ryan pranked me hard this morning and uh and and he got me i have to give him credit you did get me because i legitimately for a little while believed what you were telling me

uh if you want to know what that is we do offer a pretty funny and great pre-show for everybody that supports this show over on Patreon. So if you'd like, I mean, honestly, it winds up being like 20 plus minutes of extra content. We always say like five or 10 minutes and it's always like 20 every time. We don't know how to stop talking is the problem. I will say, I will say, we won't go into it. But troll and a troll is like the numero uno. Like that's, that's the mark.

That's a benchmark you got to try to hit. You reached a new level, Ryan. And you leveled up. And I'm, I'm, I was mad and then I was impressed at the same time. So, you know. All right. Well, hey, before we get into Marathon and, you know, man, this game's been controversial. It has, the, the internet was divided on this.

We saw a lot of just stupidity around this game. Some of it was deserved because bungee kind of brought it on themselves. We'll get into that. But guys, we have, we have a couple new supporters of the show to thank here. So a massive. shout out to I got to give this guy his credit because if you listen to our last episode

or our twig episode I thanked a fine gentleman by the name of Andrew who I took a wild shot in the dark and said hey maybe this is Lupo well it wasn't Lupo it was this awesome new member of our community and supporter of the show

Drewski who signed up to support the show coincidentally Lupo did also sign up to support the show So we gave Lupo his dues, but I want to make sure we give Drewski his dues. So Drusky, we appreciate you. Thank you for supporting the podcast. Yeah, Drewski.

I'm glad we got your name right this time. Sorry, Josh is the worst. Yeah, it's fair. It's fair. You know, I'm willing to admit when I goof a little bit, you know, sometimes you gamble and it doesn't pay off. Zupa's like, I did. Don't shake your head, Matt. I saw that.

I got flashbacks fan to every run ever. But we're good. Oh, man. And guys, I'd love to see this because one of the things we love is seeing, number one, new members of the community over on our Discord server. We love seeing new people that hop in and just start chatting away. And then it's really, really just kind of cool and humbling to us to see, like, somebody's name go from, like, new member to, like, supporter of the show within, like, the first day. Yep. And this is exactly what happened with both Drusky and the other awesome person that signed up, top Santa.

for signing up for rare status as well. So welcome to the both of you and thank you to the both of you. Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much. It is awesome because we do, contrary to popular belief with most podcasts, like we're active. We are there. We are looking every day. Every time we get a new Patreon supporter, Josh and I send it to one of the other,

whoever's there first, send it to each other. It's very exciting. And we love to see new people pop in the Discord. So all of it, we appreciate it, we love it, and it helps us keep doing what we're doing. Hey, Ryan. Yeah. Do you think that now that Matt's been on the show that he's going to sign up to support the show? No, I'll just give him rare.

I've been thinking about it. I've still have yet to review the show, too. I've been holding on to that one. I know. Maybe after this episode. He's even reviewed the show. It was a one star, but, like, he reviewed it. At least Ace left us a review.

It was a one-star review, but at least he'd left us one, Matt. He did it at least. I'll do it after this. I'm also just waiting for some more goodies and stuff, maybe some giveaways or something. Oh, he wants a gift pack for a week. Hey, maybe if I get promised to the middron after the start of every raid, I'll leave one right away. Okay. You know what?

Say, let's have him. You got it. If he's going to support the show, give him the first medroom. I can be bought. This is, there you go. Sold. All right, there you go. You heard it, people.

Matt, sign it up. Oh, man. All right, guys, let's listen, let's talk about some marathon. We can't talk about marathon without talking about the, the snafus, the mistakes that might have happened along the way with this game. We actually interviewed bungee. And they couldn't disclose a lot of information about marathon at the time. They just said, hey, we've been working on this for a really long time.

We're very excited about it. It will have the bungee quality that people are used to. you know, the shooting that people are used to from Halo and Destiny, like we understand how to make a shooter. So trust us, it's going to be awesome. And we kind of went, okay. And this was before we knew what kind of genre of game marathon was going to be. And then they finally reveal Marathon and they go, it's an extraction shooter. And everybody went, what?

Wait, what? An extraction shooter? Like, you guys realize these aren't super popular right now, right? and then a little game called Arc Raiders happened to release a few months ago. I don't know, how long has it been? Arc right, four or five months now for Arc Raiders? Oh, it's been, oh gosh, six at least. It's been longer than that?

Bro, you know, I'm old. Time flies at a different pace when you get older, man. So, so Art Raiders comes out. Wow. 2020? Okay. I wasn't that far off. No, you're not that far off.

I thought it was longer, honestly. I know, right? So there you go. So Arc Raiders comes out, takes the world by storm, becomes the premier extraction shooter that everybody freaking loves. And then it was like, well, where does this leave marathon? Right. And then we get stuck with news along the way that there was development troubles, you know, bungee struggling to develop this game.

We had the whole issue with the stolen artwork that, you know, one of their artists had that was a very defining characteristic of the art style of this game. the art style alone was a controversial issue for people because it was like, bro, this game looks weird. Like, what's with all these colors? What's with all like the weird like squares and shapes and the running,

like the runners are like these weird robot looking characters? Matt, I'm going to throw it to you first, buddy. When you saw Marathon as like an initial impression, what was your initial reaction? So this is pre-game play, but just seeing the game and some trailers and stuff like that,

like what were your initial thoughts on this? I was actually really into it right away. That cyber feel just resonated with me right away. And I played a lot of Tarkov. And actually, I was talking to my Tarkov buddy earlier today. I was like, dude, you got to get this game. I set him a discount code. You got to jump ship on Tarkov and come over to Marathon.

But the first thing he said was that art style still a little goofy and whatnot. But for me, it didn't bug me at all. I like the blockiness to it. It was simple and it has just improved to get more and more details since those early trailers we saw. So really no complaints for me. So maybe I'm a bad, I might be a bad person to ask there. No, I mean, that's an honest take.

That's fair. And I will say this, Ryan, I'm going to toss this to you because you and I have commented, you know, and said, dude, I don't know about this art style. It's plasticy. The colors are weird. Like, why did they go with this look? And now that we've played the game, it actually makes sense to me. So I'm going to toss it to you and then I'll kind of say because I think we feel the same way on this one. but what was like your initial thinking of the art style

and now that you've played it, kind of how you feel about it? I was a little unsure, but also, you know, we've talked so much about, you know, like we want something different in gaming.

Everybody does the same thing over and over and over and everybody tries to emulate, you know, what works, works, you know, you guys know in the football world, it's a copycat league.

Like, like what works everybody tries to do. So everybody has a call of do, Duty or a Battlefield like kind of emulated game or something like that. This was something that looked different and it looked like it would feel and play different. And so it makes you feel kind of weird. Like you look at it and you're like, I don't, this, I don't, this isn't feel right, you know, but like, yeah, it's unique.

Like this is, this is different, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of things in the world. When something different comes into play, like it makes you feel things that you haven't felt before. And so this, this looked different and it looked like it played different. And, you know, we're going to totally get into to that fact of it. But initially, I was, I was unsure, but I was curious. And then once you got closer and closer, it started to kind of like dial in to where I'm like, okay, this, this may be a good avenue to take. This may be something to where somebody is trying to do something a little bit different than everything else. It's not just a copy cut, you know, same game that we were getting over and over and over.

If they had tried to go for like the realism of like, you know, war zone or something like that, I think that would have been the biggest mistake they could have made. And I'll say this, myself, and I know Ryan, you know, when we saw gameplay for Marathon and we saw the art style and the things, we've said many times, like, dude, I had zero hype for Marathon. I had no expectations whatsoever. honestly I don't want to say I was negative towards the idea of the game but it was like it's going to be really hard to like compete with arc raiders it's like I just don't know where this game's going to be you know and so I went into marathon with with honestly no expectations at all other than we are a gaming podcast and we should probably cover this game and talk about it when it comes to the art style when you get into the game it it has grown on me in I mean I mean And honestly, in leaps and bounds, guys. Like, you get into the world, the atmosphere that you're in, you're hearing the ambient sounds, you're seeing the buildings, you know, you look up in the sky and it's like an alien planet kind of thing. And I remember literally the three of us talking about this and like individually kind of at various points in our first couple hours going, guys, this kind of looks pretty good, man.

I think this is growing on me. And I feel like that's like almost like a universal thing. Like we played with Dr. Joe Nasty, who is, you know, a listener of the show. And he set the exact same thing unprompted. It wasn't like, hey, what do you think about the art style? We were just chatting like, you know, like people do. And he was like, guys, I wasn't sure about the way that this game looked at first. But now that I'm in it and I'm playing it, like I think I kind of like it.

And I feel like almost universally that has been the take from people is once you get in the game and you start to experience it, I got to give him credit, man. Like, this is a sci-fi game that is unlike any other game out there visually. You know, not talking about the gameplay, we'll get into that. But if you just say, hey, you crafted this world and this universe and this, like, theme, and it is unlike any other game out there that I can think of. And I kind of love that for them because it feels so unique in that style. I'm assuming you guys agree.

Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. They just keep making it better, too. Like, they just released a patch, lowering certain, like, visual effects just a little bit to make things less jarring as well. And since the play test to the actual game release, it's just gotten better. And it seems like every week they're making it even just a little bit less jarring, a little bit less weird. And then I say that cutoff mark to when you start to get used to it's probably five raids. Once you get five raids through, everything is just like, oh, I get it.

And these visuals are at advantage, not a disadvantage, and it's really fun. It's very unique. I really like them at this point. And I didn't think I would say that. But having put in my time in this game, like, I'm all in. Like, I like what they have crafted. I like the look of this game. And that's not counting how freaking cool, like the different AI factions are and stuff,

because there's always a little cut scene there. And I'm a sci-fi nerd. Like, I love fantasy sci-fi. Either one give it to me. And this just fits into that. theme like so well to me and so I like I have to give credit where credit is due because we were skeptical just like everybody else but man if it doesn't just work and actually look really good when you're playing this game it really does help this game kind of stand out in my opinion so

all right let's get into the gameplay um you know this is an extraction shooter a couple things that set it apart is number one the setting we've just kind of talked about that uh there are three maps, which I think actually today, they released the cryo archive, which is the fourth map, but you kind of have to earn your way into that map. New map, new map, new map. We don't know personally about the cryo archive because we just haven't progressed to that point. And then there are the different runner shells.

These, and this is something that's different from other extraction shooters out there, are actually classes that are in the game. So Matt, I'm going to toss this one back to you. Can you name all of the shells and which one is your favorite? Yeah. Well, my favorite is the thief. Just for the one reoccurring joke I can make when I grapple up to a spot you guys can't get to. You're like, hey guys.

Hey, guys, follow me. And then I just go like three stories up. Has it all in time. And I'm so in like the mode. I'm like, all right, yeah. And I go and I'm like, wait, how do you get up there? I'm like, dang it. He got me again.

I'm an idiot So I start jumping on boxes And going, oh, well, I can just make this rooftop Because he said follow me And then I can't make the jump And then I'm like, Matt, you've Freakin troll, man. It's one of the subtle troll that's really easy.

We hear it every time is all right, guys, follow me. I know where we're going. And then you just see Matt Grapple hook up to a roof somewhere. And you're like, bro, I can't go up there. And then you just see me and Ryan like idiots trying to box jump and parkour our way to the top before we finally give up, run inside the building and then try to find the stairway.

So thief is one of them. That was not available during the server slam, which was the open test. Yes. Yeah. And then also it's got a recon drone. That's pretty cool. You fly around a little butterfly. And you could, it's kind of troll that you could like snite people's loot out from their character.

So like another active player, we run around the map, and you get a slap out their best gear, pick it up, fly it back to yourself. But also it's a little surveillance and whatnot. And then my favorite ability that I've kept kind of quietly is you could put on a visor and you could see where all the high tier loot is. so like you guys are kind of like aimlessly running. Oh, okay. Yeah, so you know how I had like the highest inventory total at the end. So this is why, Josh, so this is why this dude is out with 10 grand worth of loot. And we have like a 1,500 and we're like, how did you get so much?

He's like, oh, oh, I forgot that they can see where the food is. He sees the good loot. You see the looted. You see the looted. And he goes and gets it. Yeah. And you see. like the, it highlights the color.

So like the rarity. So you have your like green, which is like the basic. You know where to go first. You have the blue. You have the purple. So when I see a body that like we'll wipe a squad, all three of us. You know, we all contributed. So everyone gets a body.

I'll pop that visor real quick. Like I'll take this one over here, guys. I'll just walk over to the purple one. It makes so much sense now. Because every time we'd extract, Ryan and I are extracting because the game tells you like the value of like your kit that you extracted with. And like, you know, we're at like 1.8K. maybe 2.6K. And then we look over and Matt's got like 8K.

And then we're like, Matt, what the heck, dude? And he's like, I don't, I got this. And every single time he always goes, oh, I got this one item that sells for a lot. Yeah. Right. And then we're like, oh, okay. Because it's dumb because we're like, well, we don't necessarily need a lot of money. But he's been freaking just taking the good loot.

Yeah. We got got. Okay. It's I forgot that the thief can do that in all honesty because I haven't played a lot of thief, so that really makes a lot of sense. It offers some utility during team fights because it will hack another runner or whatever, which basically distorts their view a little bit and also makes their abilities operate differently.

But I save it just for the loot. I really, I want to make sure that's up right away. And there's moments where I'll pop that thing. And we were having a conversation the other day, Josh, about how you don't have any blue shields or something like that. And I just kind of like open my inventory and I've got like four or five and everything. I have none. And then you yell at me for not going with.

Blue Shields and I'm like that. I don't have any loot. It's because he took it all. It's because he took it all. Yeah. So I'm a little guilty there. Anyways. So there's the Thief show. Finish the list. Finish the list. The Thief shell's awesome. The Destroyer Shell, which is Josh, you are so good with. You get a little extra mobility. You run a little faster. You get like a riot shield type energy shield. And then your ultimate's pretty awesome. You shoot missiles as you hit an enemy. And then I think it immobilizes them as. they hit and stuff. So you're just laying massive amounts of rounds and they're getting hit with missiles everywhere. So that's probably one of the stronger classes or shells, I could say, just because of the versatility for sure. The Destroyer is my main. I did not think

it was going to be my main, to be honest with you. Like I thought the assassin class would be the class that I would gravitate towards. But then like playing the destroyer, it's like a mobile tank. It's like the tank of your group and he's got a good bit of mobility. He's got, in my opinion, the best alt out of all the classes

because that thing just racks, dude. So yeah, it's weird because I would not have predicted that that would be the class that I would wind up playing and enjoying the most. But it just goes to show you that you don't know unless you try some other ones. And then tell us how bad Ryan is at Medic. Well, so, yeah, the triage class. So it's supposed to have. I just go on Ryan. You got me.

I owe you. I owe you, Ryan. Oh, yeah. So. Yeah. So this triage class, if you're playing it at home, you have three abilities. if Ryan's playing it, you have one. Which is just the...

Oh! I'll say half of one, because sometimes he forgets to throw out his med drones. You know, I heal you guys. Like, you're going to, like, you're going to suffer now. Oh, man. You're going to suffer now. You're going to be complaining for bots and I'm like, oh, I don't have any. No, I should always have a lot.

I'm reviewing the show. Well, not so basically where we're at right now. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, so you get these drones and they, then they repair you very slow pace and stuff, and Ryan can throw one on each teammate. And then when he heals or pops a, of med or some other consumable everyone on the team gets that effect which is awesome and then

the reason why i was saying ryan only uses one ability is because he the old is like an instant revive and for some reason he has a hard time hitting people with it like it's just you mean the dead unmoving corpses it's got some weird lock on it's got this like orb that you have to like lock on yeah so the amount of times that Ryan has missed his res his his his there he used to be. It's a little tough. I love it. And then you get an overcharge ability,

which just increases your damage. And if you're using a certain type of weapon, it breaks shields faster, shoots off an EMP, which that's a really strong ability that some people use. Yeah. Giving a medic an assault type ability, I think is actually really cool

because it's like, then you're not stuck just playing this passive class and hiding in the background. And it does. It improves like the stability or the handling of your gun. I think it improves the fire rate of the gun a little bit as well. It's a good balancing effect. It's a noticeable change.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, and then like you said, honestly, I mean, you know, obviously it's a medic. So the med bots come in really key. But I think a lot of people underappreciate the fact that it's like if the medic pops a, you know, a cleanse. Like if you're hacked, right, it will remove that for everybody that has a bot at the time. So that can actually be really strong in a team fight too. Yeah.

And then that's pretty much like the three classes that we play consistently when we're playing as a squad. There is also the assassin class, which Matt, you tried for a little while and then kind of went, this is the troll class. So I think I might like this one. It's a little trolley. And it's also tough in trios because you just throw down a bunch of smoke. And sometimes it just gets in the way your teammates. But Josh, you and I had some fun runs when we were duo queuing into trios where we were both assassins. and we would basically just go in with free kits

and try to knife people and hide in smoke. That was a lot of fun. You kind of put me on to that idea. I know we were talking about it. Should we do trio assassins? Let's do trio assassins. It is trolly, man. It really is.

Because if you can make it work, they don't know what hit them is the thing. And then it's just you're just knifing people in this cloud of smoke. And then you're invisible the whole time. And then they're just panicking. And then it's like, okay, well, we just killed this squad. if you get caught without, you know, any other class in your squat, it doesn't, it doesn't pan out all the time.

But when it does work, it's pretty darn fun. And then you do have the Vandal class, which oddly none of us like. It's probably the most mobile class. They have a very long power slide ability that is really, really good for mobility. They can double jump naturally. They get this kind of like rocket knockback ability, a la Fara, if people are familiar with Overwatch, where it's like a pulse and then it knocks people away and does minimal damage. But and then what is the old for the vandal?

I have I played the vandal like once. And I don't even remember what their old is. It just increases your your heat capacity. So you can do all these really enhanced movements with no, uh, no drawback. And then just zip around over and over. Right. Yeah. The vandal,

the vandal for people that really like a really strong mobility is probably a great class. But it's also what I call the most selfish class. because you're not playing for the team at that point. Like, yes, you're speedy and zippy, but unless you're, like, flanking around somebody and actually getting to a good position, you're not really, like, participating in that team fight. And then finally, the recon class,

which I think is super valuable to have on a team. It's just that none of us really like playing the recon class that much. He's cool, right? So the recon class basically gets an AOE ping, where if anybody, it'll ping any enemies that are nearby. So, like, a sonar ping. who's the guy in Apex? Bloodhound? Yeah. Is it bloodhound?

Very similar to that where it's like, hey, I can ping any enemies if they're in this building, it'll show. If somebody pings you, so if they like, you know, ping you to their team, it alerts you that an enemy just pinged you, which I think is actually kind of cool. That's neat. And then if you, I think if you ping

somebody, or is it if you shoot somebody, you get to see their footprints and where they ran off to so you can kind of like track them down at the same time. So that's the recon class. And that's, that's the classes in this game. I'll be honest. I think that classes in an extraction shooter are what make this game part of what it is. It's genius. I love it. I love the ability to play as different styles of characters. We have found the classes that we appreciate, you know, that like we kind

of just gravitate towards. So I think that that is a really good move to incorporate in an extraction shooter like this as well. Anything else to say about the classes before we take a break, guys? Did you mention the Rook? Yeah, the Rook. I didn't mention the Rook because that's, that is a, okay, well, let's bring it up. Are we getting into it now? I just wasn't sure. Yeah, I guess we should.

We should before because it does fall into the shells. And this is another unique mechanic for this game that I think does work really well. Matt, I know you've been having a ton of fun playing the Rook. I'm still kind of on the fence with Rook. So basically what the game has done is they have said, hey, not everybody's going to play in a squad. And they don't have duo modes yet, but they are testing duo modes this weekend. actually this episode releases Monday. So this weekend that just passed, they are testing duo mode.

So we know it's coming. Yeah. However, if you are a loot goblin like the three of us are and you go, man, sometimes I just want to go in and suck up loot, you can play as the rook class. And Ryan, why don't you explain kind of what? Have you played any rounds with the rook? I know you've been busy. So this isn't against you.

But have you haven't played a ton. But I know that when you hop in with the rook, it's that kind of, solo round throw away disposable character that you can come in and you can just try to get in and get loot and get out like that that's your rook runs you know you have the abilities to to to drop in solo and I think all the all the solo runs all all pair solo right if you're rook not not with rook you go into a full squad go into all that's right because yeah because we ran into rooks before yep oh that's right I forgot about yeah so you got to be on your game because it is not solo v. Solo.

It is you are going into, so the main thing with the rook, the main thing with the rook is you go into a match that has already progressed a certain amount of time. So more often than not, you're dropping in with half the time left on the map because you have 25 minutes. When you join a raid,

you have 25 minutes before you basically are forced to die at the end of the raid. If you don't ex-fill, you lose everything. And then you get a 25-minute timer. So when you join as a rook, like I've joined with as little as seven minutes left in a match. So, yeah, and that's not always the best. But the rook has a couple things that are advantages.

Ryan, number one, it's a free kit every time. You cannot bring gear in as a rook. So you have nothing to lose when you play rook. The other thing, and one of the things that we haven't talked about is the AI in this game is deadly, dude. I don't know. Like, look, we've played the heck out of Arc Raiders. you know, some of the arc, you know, like the, you know, the, you know, the Rocketeer, right? There's some, there's some AI enemies in Arc Raiders where you're like, we're not messing.

We're not, yeah, we don't mess with that. That is almost everything in Marathon, dude. Like, legitimately, the AI in this game is impressive as anything with how it moves its behavior and how deadly it is. Well, the movement of the behavior is like a super key point because I can't tell you how many times when I saw them like running up or downstairs or around a corner. And I'm like, it's a baddie, it's a baddie. We were trying to come up with code names between the AI and like real players. And like, sometimes you can't tell because they move so well.

They'll, they'll be super aggressive and attack you and then like dip behind or or they'll do all these crazy things. So like, yeah, the movement, the movement and the aggression is insane with the AI in this game. And swarming too. Because you'll blink and all of a sudden you'll have like six guys. One, three one. Yeah.

It's all the melee. They're all there. They got jet packs and just rocket punch you every time. But yeah. The Rook ability, though, you could become one of them, essentially. That is, yeah. So explain that, Matt, because this is actually the really cool part and the one major advantage that the Rook has. Yeah, it's really, really cool.

So it's kind of like the tactical ability of the Rook. You just put on a disguise essentially and you become the AI and they don't target you unless you take certain actions. Like if you heal or if you sprint or you shoot, you are the AI and they won't target you. So that's kind of where the fun starts to happen with the Rook is you blend. in with the AI, they're fighting a squad, and you kind of just sneak between the AI and you find maybe one guy got down by a robot, because they're pretty tough. They're very swarming. And a lot of times you find these guys that are just, they're not expecting you. And you show up and you shoot them a couple times and you down one, and then it's just a 1 v1. And that's when you get

really good loot because you're a solo and you just get to take three guys loot and you get out of there. And it's awesome. That's where the satisfaction comes from. Yeah, it is very tactical in nature. It is on a timer. I think you get maybe like 30 seconds, maybe 40 seconds at most where you know, your disguise as the rook is active and you can just walk past any of the AI in the game. You look like an AI. Like there is a difference, but the game intentionally made the character look like one of the AI. So if you are not just sprinting around everywhere, like people think you are an AI and you can absolutely take advantage of that. I had one time where a squad, I was near a bunch of them, but not within agro range.

And a squad went running by and it was very obviously they thought I was an AI just kind of on the outskirts. And then I picked off the guy in the back, downed him, hid behind a bush, went walking around the other way. And again, you don't always want to agro the AI because that's a hard fight a lot of times. And then I picked off another guy and I wound up wiping their squad because they didn't want to engage with what they thought was an AI because now it's going to train six other

guys over there. So a lot of strategy to that, very low risk. great opportunity to get a lot more loot than you normally would. If you go in solo and you're playing solo v. Solo, there's a lot more on the line at that point. So the rook, it's a neat balance between you are going up against squads and they will absolutely kill you.

Yeah, for sure. So you have to be sneaky, you have to be stealthy, and you have to be smart and kind of how you approach playing as the rook in a squad match as that goes. So I'll tell you what a cool feature. Real quick before.

What a cool feature, though, to entice solo players into an extraction shooter. Like if you're not playing with friends or you're not playing with anyone else, like if you're just going to play solo runs, like what a cool way to like entice you to want to continue to do that. So I think that's really neat. It's incredible.

It changes the game, dude. Like Matt, you've been having a ton of fun with rook and you were talking to me about it where you're like, bro, they're like, I'm learning some of these strategies now. Yeah. So the rook, it's also really cool because you level it up by playing non-rook characters.

So as a rook, you can't do quest. You are pretty much in there to go kill people and take loot and stuff. But you level it up and you get better weapons. You get more, you get a better backpack, a better shield, stuff like that. You get claymores, which are so, so fun to troll. Because people see a rook and they'll come sprinting at you from across the map. It's like, this guy's a loop pinata. Let's go get them.

But you set a little hallway up with like three claymores. These guys come running down and it boom, boom, and it's like, oh, there you go, squad wife. The rook might be my second favorite shell. Just because of the clips you could get. It's pretty great. It took a while to grow on me. I even, I played four or five matches and I even texted you and I was like, bro, Rook is not for me.

And then I played like four or five more. And then I texted you and I was like, okay, actually, I think it's kind of clicking now, man. Like, I just got a ton of loot from these guys. I wiped this squad. Like, this is actually really cool. But I do like that they've geared it towards this is a good way to get loot if you're running low. And it's also a way to kind of challenge yourself in how can you play the game differently than

if you were playing in a squad because you absolutely have to change your play style. if you're playing as the rook. So I'll tell you what, we'll take a quick break. We're running low on time, but we're going to talk about a little bit of the gameplay and what works with Marathon and what doesn't work with Marathon. And we'll talk about that right after this break.

One plus one equals more of the greatest stories. Hulu on Disney Plus. Stories about survivors. The most dangerous planet. Family. Retribution. Murder. Prophecy.

Beer and propane. Bali Miller. Blake Pantha. The ultimate soldier. Chicago, all right? The best of the best stories now with even more from Hulu. Amazing! Have it all with 3-1 Disney Plus.

When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to West Jetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at WestJetting. Jet.com slash 30 years.

All right, we're back. There you go, people. You've heard about the shells. You've heard about the visuals. You've heard about, you know, how Marathon kind of came into being and what initial thoughts and skepticism and things like that were. Let's just talk about the game itself. This is an extraction shooter.

It is 3V3. That's the maximum squad size. Like we just mentioned, there is not a duos mode yet, but it is coming. There is a solo, so you can go in solo. if you prefer. And then obviously there's the Rook gameplay that we just talked about. One of the things that people were truly wondering about this game is, is it going to have incredible gunplay?

You know, the visuals look really weird to a lot of people to begin with. The inventory system looks really weird with all of the icons. I'll be honest, I'm still not a fan of the inventory system in this game. I know it at this point, so it's become familiar. But I do think that there's a lot of room for improvement

in how they differentiate some of the gear. and equipment and things like that. Does this game satisfy you when it comes to this is bungee? This is the this is the studio. And I look, okay, everybody loves to point out when you say this is bungee and Halo and and they go, but that's not the same people that made Halo. And it's like, okay, I get it. Like, yes, there's different developers and people came and people went and like, we get it.

But it's still the, it's still bungee, right? And it's like they have a pedigree. whether you like it or not or whether you go this isn't the original bungee dabs they're not the same ones that made Halo

but they did make Halo and they did make Destiny do you like the game the gunplay Matt what are your thoughts on this? This is probably

the strongest feature of the game so my top two hours played in a game number one is Destiny 2 played a lot just like Ryan and then Tarkov

is up there and this feels like a marriage of the two where the gun play advances on the genre of Tarkov, and it feels awesome. The gunplay's great. If you have played Halo or Destiny, there are guns that are directly ripped from

those games. Like the Mita Multitool is in the game essentially. Oh, I know that good. Yeah. My man, my man. And then like the battle rifle from Halo. And there's a needler as well. So it's very familiar, but it, I think Steve said it.

The gunplay is crispy or crunchy. Like when you shoot someone, it just feels crunchy. Like breaking like a light puddle of ice. you know, it's just very satisfying. And yeah, it's great. That's one of the strongest features of the game for me. What do you think, Ryan? How do you feel about the gunplay in this?

I mean, you've played a gazillion hours of destiny. Does it feel similar? Do you like the gunplay in this? So I have. I got almost 2,000 hours in Destiny 1, probably 7,800 in Destiny 2. I think that if there's anything that they can do and these devs can do,

is they can make the gunplay. The rest of it, that's kind of why destiny's kind of falling off because they don't know where to go or what to do, which is unfortunate because it was one of my loves. But what they can do is they can do gunplay, and they do it magnificently in this game. Like they have different guns with different shooting styles,

different RPMs, like for an electric gun. There's just, there's so many different ways to, shoot a weapon in this game to match your play style and that's what I love and they're all you know like you said they're crunchy they're crisp they're clean like everything feels impactful

and with the purpose it's not it's not skushy it's not mushy it's not weird it's it's all directly driven for the the force that you're trying to drive you know and you're trying to kill this other shell and it all feels like

you're trying to do so so I I love it. I think the gun play in this game is really good. And I think that's, we've talked about a lot of this game. And I think that it's fantastic. But I really do believe the gunplay is the saving grace of this game. I think it's what makes it to that next level, where it is a game I would recommend to somebody or something like that because it is so good. It is, it is clean. It is crisp. And it's, it's awesome.

And a bonus. I'm going to just, oh, go ahead, man. I was going to say a bonus onto the combat, the knife. The knife is so satisfying. It does so much damage. And it's when you, for killing bots, for killing people, it's great. Anyway, sorry, Josh. No, I was going to, honestly, this is one of the things, too. I can't remember who it was if it was one of you guys or maybe it was our buddy Steve that we were playing with.

But somebody commented that said the knife in this game feels like the melee from Halo, where it is absolutely deadly. If you remember Halo multiplayer, if you could punch. somebody. That was the finishing kill, right? Like you tried to melee them because it was that dangerous and the knife feels very, very similar to that in how it

impacts them and the reward for being like, yeah, I just knife that dude. So I think that this is honestly, I'm with you, Ryan. This is the shining crowning thing about marathon. If you are a fan of shooters and you like top notch

gunplay, this is where this game shines beyond all belief. Like I'm a big fan of the art style and the worlds that they've built and just the gameplay part of it. But the gunplay and marathon to me is is honestly like second to none. It feels like you would expect and yet you would like you would hope for. And that is every single gun that I have like I have tried, the SMGs, the LMGs, the big like the snipers, you know, even like the high tech like rail guns.

Like every gun in this game feels good, dude. And I don't know how they pulled that off. The energy weapons, what, you know, they call them Volt weapons, you know, those feel great. And that's like the similarity to the needler where it has some tracking ability.

There's like a Volt like semi auto rifle that feels incredible. Like every gun in this game just feels amazing. And when you pair that with the fun of the different shells and the tactical abilities, because every shell has, you know, a tactical ability, an ultimate ability and sometimes like a passive or a secondary ability. you're getting into like a range that not that other extraction shooters do not get into.

And I think this is what really truly sets Marathon apart for me is, you know, I love Arc Raiders. You know, and everybody wants to make the comparison between the two because they're in the same genre. They are not the same game. Like, yes, they're in the same genre, but they are not in the same game, man. Like they're very, very different in my opinion. and this is not shade to Arc Raiders at all, but if you like gunplay, the gunplay and marathon is miles above the gunplay

in Arc Raiders to me. It is easily the best thing in this game. So kudos to them. It is what people were saying. Can they pull this off with the pedigree that this studio has? And I think they absolutely knocked it out of the park, in my opinion. So all right. You know, otherwise this game does play like an extraction shooter.

We kind of have to start wrapping this up, because, you know, it is, you, you drop into a raid, you go collect loot, you kill other people and steal their loot. I think that it has a really, really well done quest system, you know, that where it's like, hey, you're working for these different factions. The different factions all kind of have their own vibe to them, whether it's just, hey, we're like a general supply faction or we're a murderous, you know, we're going to just kill everybody faction. To the really weird secgen faction, which is the weird caterpillars and moths and stuff that you see in the loading, screens like I like what they did with the factions um that's where you get your quests and your progression and hey now I can buy blue shields you know that that you've worked your way up and so you know you can buy this higher level equipment uh it gives you XP they give you rewards

that's pretty common fair as far as extraction shooters go as well so um do you guys have a favorite map like I said at the top of the show there are you know three playable maps with a fourth called cryo archive that just released we don't really know a lot about that map yet. There is speculation that Cryo Archive is actually just going to be a raid map where you only fight against the AI a la destiny, which I think would be honestly genius in my opinion, but we just don't have confirmation of that yet. Give me the option.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Do you guys have a favorite map? The chaos of outposts is a lot of fun. It's a little bit more PVP. It's a little bit smaller, less total squads, but everything you're getting funneled into this main part of the map. and it has the best loot.

So I'd say that, but I'm not very good at navigating it yet. That's why I have to get, I have to use the grapple hook because I refuse to find out where all the actual stairs are to get to rooftops. So me leaving you guys is part of my incompetence, actually. Yeah. Follow me. Flies away non-stop. Yeah.

But then honestly, overall, Dyer Marsh is a lot of fun, just because it's so big. There's so many, so much variety. Yeah. That's probably mine, too. I like Dyer Marsh a lot because, you know, Like, there's a lot of opportunity for loot. And then there, within that, there's also, you're going to run into some squads. Like, you're going to find some people to battle against, you know?

And this is not, you know, and obviously we don't like, you know, part of the troll. Like, games can exist together. Arc Raiders, there's a lot of, a lot of, like, hey, you're friendly, you're friendly? It's like, in this game, there's nobody. I've not heard of single person talk to me. You guys said you have, but I have not. And it's, you see someone shoot on site. Like, it's death.

So you can find someone. You can shoot out immediately. And it's a PVP battle from there. And then, you know, you sack their loot. And Matt obviously takes it all because he's got his visor. Oh, yeah. He's good to go. I share some stuff.

Make you guys, like, fight for it and whatnot. We do get the scraps, Brian. We get the leftovers. That's fine. Yeah, oddly enough, I think I prefer the beginning map, which is perimeter. I like the, I like that it has these large areas that are kind of like little mini cities almost or like bases or whatever you want to call them outposts. And then I like that there's the open areas in between. Now, Dyer Marsh has that as well, but there's something about just the vibe of perimeter that I'd like a little bit more.

It might be that it's just also just a tiny bit less sweaty than Dyer Marsh is. Outpost freaks me out. Like I like Outposts, but again, I get super lost and I know that this is where all the sweats are. And so it just intimidates me at the same time. Outpost is Stella Montes for our creators. Like it's like it's like it really is. You want to go PVP like for real real PVP like instant instant battles. Like that's where you go.

Yeah. All right. I'll tell you what. We got to wrap this up guys. Final thoughts and rating on Marathon. Would you recommend this game to people? Does it, you know, do you think it's going to have longevity?

Is there enough here for you to say, I got a lot of hopes for this game, or is it more like, you know, maybe I got my money's worth out of this, but I would probably caution people to stay away from it. And then let's go ahead and give it a rating. So I'll start off.

I think Marathon is freaking great. Like, like legitimately, I have been having so much fun with this game. And I did not expect this at all. I mean, like I said, I went into this was,

zero expectations, honestly, kind of hesitant about what this game was going to be. And then before you know it, Ryan's like, Josh, how do you have 30 hours in this game? And I'm like, bro, don't judge me, man. Okay? Like, don't judge me. This game got its hooks into me big time, dude, like big time. I like the class system that's right up my alley. The gunplay is incredible.

It is sweaty. I'm not the shooter that I used to be, you know, 10 years ago, but I can still kind of to hold my own. So, you know, there are those moments, but then there's also the moments where we lose eight matches in a row and my vault is now barren and I get frustrated and I'm like, bro, like, can we get a kill? You know, like what's going on here? So I really, really enjoy this game. I would like to believe that it has longevity. I think one of the best things that Bungie could do is incorporate these raid type zones and these boss fights like you see in destiny because again, and the AI is incredible in this game.

And it fits into the vibe and the theme and the story that this game is going for. So I think that would be absolutely masterful. I am going to give this game an 8.8, dude. I, like, will I fall off of it? I will because Crimson Desert's coming out. And you can only handle, like, so much of a really sweaty shooter. But, like, what I have been playing is honestly pretty dang glorious. And I have to give it its credit, dude.

So for me, it's an 8.8. And it is a strong recommend. for people that like really, really good shooting mechanics and don't mind dying and losing all of your stuff repeatedly over and over and over again. Matt, let's go to you. You've played probably the most extraction shooters out of all of us. What are your thoughts on Marathon and what would you rate it?

I love all extraction shooters. I loved Arc. I loved Ark. I was actually going to go with the exact same rating at 8.8, and I think it could get elevated to like a 9.1 based off of this next week. based off of this new map, the content they're starting to come through with and whatnot, I think they could really hit a home run. And we're going to know within the next few days exactly how much of a home run it is.

And it's going to add the replayability. So, like, we're just going to know so much about the future of this game within the next week. And I'm so excited for it. So 8-8, right now I've got my money's worth for $40. It's absolutely worth it. But the big thing why I prefer this game to say other things is I prefer first-person shooting over third person. Yes. I don't know what it is.

The combat just feels a little bit different. It's a little bit more predictable. You can't peek around a corner and wait for someone to come down the hallway. Like, you have to put yourself at risk. So that gunplay just feels a lot more natural to me. So I do prefer it. The gunplay over Ark and stuff, but I love them all. And it delivers.

It's a great game. Yeah. Ryan, how are you on this one? That's fair. Obviously, you two nerds have four Billy Gillian. zillion hours in this game. You had your marathon, no pun intended, like weekend where I just look to you guys and you guys like 14 hours every day.

I was going to say, did we get up to like 12 hours that one Saturday? I think we did. Every once in a while I'd look and I'm like, oh, they're still on. And like my Discord thing would be like, they've been on for seven and a half hours. I'm like, oh my God. Like what are they doing? Yeah. So props to you guys for putting in the time, you know, your professionals.

Absolutely. I really did enjoy this game. I think that if there's one thing Bungy can do is it's gunplay, they did it very well in this game. I love first person shooters. I grew up with first person shooters, but for some reason, like the third person hits with me a little bit more,

but that doesn't take away from this. I still loved this game. I loved, you know, I loved Arc Raiders, obviously, but these two can coexist. And I can have an awesome. time playing both of them. This one for me, I'm going to say I'm a little bit lower than you guys.

I'm probably an 8.5, I would say. Like, I'm up there. It's a really good game. It's something that I will absolutely go back to. And then Matt, you said it, like with the updates they're doing. I love when a developer is not only fixing issues or fixing problems within the game, but they're quick to it. Like they're on the spot like, oh, hey, you guys said this.

Boom, here you go. Oh, what about that? Here you go. And they're just right on top of it. Every week, they're dropping these new patches. And then people like you that love to play this game are like, oh, look what happened. You know, and so you keep updating it. And so I think if they keep doing that and they really stay on this, they could create something special, especially like if Josh, like if you said, if we have like a raid ability and we can go and like fight these other bosses against.

get good weapons to then go and do our normal runs, like with these cool upgraded weapons, but then, you know, the risk of losing them. Like, that's a little spicy, man, you know? So it's scary. So that's enticing. So I really genuinely enjoyed this game. But like, yeah, an 85, I would highly recommend it. Get additionally 40 bucks.

I've got more than my money's worth. It's a really good game. And, yeah, you all should play it. this i got to i got to give them credit this was the other smart thing that they did was pricing this game at 40 yeah yeah it feels like it feels like it feels and plays like a 70 dollar game but the fact that it's 40 dollars is a huge huge like just bonus because you're getting a really good game for that price uh and yeah and ryan you you hit the nail on the head you know and matt you too with bungee has been insanely responsive with player feedback yeah you know hey we want doos okay

duos is coming your inventory system sucks okay we're fixing it uh stacks in inventory aren't right i'm always out of vault space okay we're fixing that uh they you know they wanted you know real quick they they there was a change with the audio where you could hear other people because some people are like there's not enough pvp in this game and so they went okay well we increase the sound that you can hear like gunfire and then people went yeah you guys went a little too far with that like i can hear battles like halfway across the map and now it's just pure chaos so there's not a balance and bungee went bro we hear you we'll we'll address this and we'll pull it back a little bit so they are absolutely just on top of this they are number one and i don't mean this in a negative way

but they're desperate for this game to succeed oh it's got it kind of tell that they're putting in their love you know and it does but i think they're on to something man like i really think they're on to something with this so if you've been listening to the internet and you know oh marathon is garbage and it's just another crappy shooter and all this. Don't listen to that. Listen to gamers that you know and trust. You know, we went into this with no expectations whatsoever and we all left very pleasantly surprised. I mean, 8.5 from Ryan and 88 from Matt and myself. And I agree with Matt. I think there's potential for this game to really get even better than where it's at right now. So if it seems like you were curious, this is the assurance that this

game is absolutely top notch. It's worth your time to check out. You have to understand it's sweaty. It is an extraction shooter and it is it is hardcore. People are very good at killing you and you will die a lot. But if you can be okay with that, there is an absolutely fantastic video game to be had with Marathon. So all right. Well, listen, that's going to do it for this episode. Everybody, Matt, our boy. Thank you so much, man. This was awesome. Yeah, man. That's fun, huh? Hope you had fun. It is fun. It's fun. Listeners out there, give Matt some love in the comments. Like I said, I work with him, so I'll make sure to show him and, you know, give him some love for taking time out of his day to hop on here and chat marathon so that you guys can all get another viewpoint from somebody since Ace didn't want to talk about marathon, you know.

And I would like to say that Ace was been busy playing Slay the Spire 2 since we trolled him about that. But he's not. He's not. All we saw was rival screenshots today. Oh, this person's coming on rivals and we're like, Ace, it's dead. Yeah, like, just give it up, Ace. Stop trying to make rivals happen, Ace. It's dead.

Yeah, I know. So listen, everybody, if you love what we do, if you enjoy this podcast, please remember to follow the show. Hit that plus button, that follow button so that you get all our episodes the day that they release. If you want to be like Druski, Top Santa and all of our other glorious, amazing supporters of the show. And soon to be Matt, remember. Don't forget about that. Oh, yeah.

He said it. I'll hear a review. He said it. He said it. You know, this is a listener-supported podcast. We need the support of the listeners to continue to do this. So if this podcast brings you some joy, if it makes your life just a little bit better, keeps you up to date on your video game news, think about supporting this show.

You can do that for as little as five bucks a month on Patreon. There's a link in the episode description. So you don't have to go and Google and all that stuff. We respect your time. You get access to an incredible pre-show. Every single episode, you get a shout-out on the show and a premium discise. perks, which our community's like, we're at like 1,30-some-odd gamers now. It's very active.

It's an awesome Discord server. Come be a part of it. Find your new home for gaming and people to play with. It really is awesome. That's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See ya. Later, guys.

Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember. 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.