Marathon

Dear Bungie Development Team, I am writing to share my feedback and some frustrations regarding the current state of Marathon. After spending close to 40 hours in the game on Xbox, I feel it is important to highlight several issues that are significantly impacting the player experience. While the world-building, story, and complex level design are incredible, it is often impossible to actually appreciate them. The current PvP environment is some of the most ruthless I’ve ever seen. As it stands, casual players like myself that never played extraction shooters before don't stand a chance against elite PvP players. It is frustrating to see such a deep narrative and intricate maps when players are rarely given the time or opportunity to complete them before being eliminated. I strongly urge the team to consider implementing a dedicated PvE mode to allow players to engage with the world you’ve built without the constant threat of high-level competitive play. You could still create maps with stronger uesc and incentivise players to collaborate instead of killing for fun. Furthermore, the technical experience on console is currently quite poor, on Xbox more specifically. When attempting to play "Console Only," I am consistently unable to find a match. I wait 5–10 minutes only to be met with a disconnect error. Why can’t I be out in the game not knowing if there is other runners. I would still be on edge and would still have to deal with the difficult ai. The only way to get a game quickly is to enable cross-platform, but this results in console players getting smashed by PC players, which creates a massive competitive disadvantage. Getting killed 10 x in a row at exfil point by other runners as a rook trying to get out was the tipping point for me to ask for a refund and dumped this game cause that’s ridiculous. I paid for the deluxe edition thinking this would be the game I play the most for the next few years as I’m a big fan of your previous works such as destiny. I tried supporting your project but you made so inaccessible for the casual players that it feels as if you do not care about the players that helped make your studio so successful. Anyway, I truly believe PvE builds up the community, PvP toxicity kills games. I can see thru reddit and other socials that casuals are quitting in droves, what is the goal here? Destroy your own game? After 40 hours of gameplay, it feels demoralizing to have nothing to show for it due to these imbalances. I hope these points are taken into consideration to help make Marathon a more accessible and functional experience for the entire community and not just the hardcore PvP streamers out there. I am baffled by the idea that would spend 250 million on a niche hardcore PvP game. But then again, it’s your choice. Congratulations on loosing a long term fan Regards, A very disappointed fan.