'Marathon,' my first extraction shooter

I played Destiny when it first came out and was surprised by the roller coaster that was that game's launch. Remember Peter Dinklage as Ghost?

Destiny 2 was a lot of fun, but I fell off after a few expansions. It wasn't that the game was bad, but other games held my attention better.

Now, with the death of Destiny 2, I became curious about Marathon. I ignored its launch if only because what I had heard about it at the start didn't appeal to me.

What the heck is an extraction shooter? What's the story? This all sounds pretty odd.

I was too young and too poor to have ever heard of the original Marathon, but apparently this one honors that one's story. None of that is important of course, because it kind of feels like gobbledygook once you start playing.

I'm interested in this failed civilization and how you have to piece things together while not dying. The computer-operated enemies feel as threatening as the human ones in this world, which is an accomplishment on its own.

I love the world design. Everything kind of opens up as you explore and feels like you're truly discovering something new, or some secret area. The sound design might be the best I've heard in a video game too.

I use HomePods as my home theater speakers and they do a perfect job of playing the sounds as if something is to my right, left, above, or even behind me. The science behind throwing audio that way from two speakers a few feet away will never cease to amaze me.

Anyway, Marathon has proven interesting because of how I've learned to play it. Maybe I'm bad at it, but it seems like dying is just a regular thing in this game, and I've learned not to get attached to my inventory.

In fact, I often go in with the sponsored gear just so I can fiddle around in the world and attempt to exfil with a few goodies. If I die, no big deal.

The smart part of this game is that as long as you complete an objective, you're good to go. Dying doesn't matter. This is actually baked into the lore, as you're actually just a bit of data stored in the cloud and the body dying doesn't mean you die.

You just enter a new shell. And being able to choose and customize the shell is interesting too. In this game, I'm not playing as some character with a backstory and a name, nor am I playing as a faceless robot that can be swapped out. I'm playing as a singular character that can embody other forms as a part of the story.

Now that's cool.

I will say it is frustrating when other players just murder you as soon as they see you. Heck, even if you don't engage and try to leave, they chase you down and kill you anyway. I suppose that makes sense, maybe I'm trying to sneak back around and kill them too.

The exfil sites are also funny. I've experienced being murdered just trying to leave with a separate group. But I've also been the one that lets another person join me in the exfil.

There seems to be this rule that if you see a Rook you shouldn't shoot it. I like that, though I'm not sure everyone follows that rule either.

The most frustrating thing with this game is matchmaking. I think they should have a different system in place.

Right now, when I try to join a regular game, I'm waiting several minutes. That's because the game is attempting to line you up with other players and start everyone in the world at the same time.

That's fine and dandy, but really, it creates this situation where you can wait for five minutes to start a match then get killed by a player in seconds. Sometimes, it feels like I'm matchmaking more than I'm playing in a two-hour session.

Playing as a Rook means you jump into someone else's game that's underway. Often the play clock has around 15 minutes or less remaining. The play clock is 25 minutes for regular games and if you have to leave before time runs out or you lose your inventory.

But, because a Rook doesn't need to start with a fresh clock, you jump into someone else's game and it takes seconds to do so.

Perhaps there's a middle ground somewhere. Let players jump into games with a 30 minute clock then in that 5 next minutes let others join your world. The result is a rolling matchmaking process that lets everyone jump in much faster. And yes, that means the person who gets in first has a slight advantage, but that's a good thing I think. Everyone will have a turn at having that advantage.

Anyway, I hope Bungie pours some resources into the game and creates new modes to attract Destiny fans as that service ends. I'm aware that there is a concern that player count is too low for Marathon to have a bright future, but that's silly. Destiny had a rough launch in its first year and wasn't praised as it is today for some time.

I believe Sony can give it the space it needs.