Ive recently learned that they did a playtest for Marathon the game based off of the same series from the 90s.
and i gotta say, im so over bungie trying to do sleek stuff. ever since destiny 1 i really disliked what they did with it and how they turned all the dlcs into live service vaulting as well as just making every dlc expensive as hell.
theyre turning a campaign focused game with a side of multiplayer into an extraction shooter
and they completely turned the art style into some basic cyber corpo vibe.
Game genre matters - extraction shooters are limited severally by their game genre, you can only have so much going on in it. Maps are constrained by locations, gameplay and balance is utterly important because 1. you dont want snipers across the map 2. you gotta have a game flow around it and you have to direct it to an end point. 3. story CANNOT take place in it at all, if you do youll end up having players be in positions they cannot be in or interrupt the entire flow of the game for story.
Originally Marathon was a campaign game with multiplayer thrown in on the side, which has far more freedom in how it can approach things because it can control flow, story, and atmosphere way more easier.
they turned a full meal into a scavenger hunt that you must grind through to get a fry which shouldve come with your burger but they said you gotta work for it. Where a campaign means you can go through it getting the meal at a steady pace then after it you can get dessert on the side (multiplayer).
Art style from older years strike more than modernization -
during the development of Marathon 2024 they decided to redo the art style, but completely lost the idea the original was going for.
these are from the Marathon 2024 trailers
the last image is of the S'pht which are aliens from the original series, which is shrouded in darkness, which sucks because its legitimately the only thing you can fully recognize from the first 3 games.
theyve changed the art style so much this is supposed to be a cyborg but lacks the brutal designs of the original
its too sleek, its too modern
now here is art by Craig Mullins (original site which the art is from https://marathon.bungie.org/story/CM_history.html and https://marathon.bungie.org/story/CM_blake.html)
Each of these images have so much style, so much care, and so much design to it the announcement trailer makes it look so unappealing, its too formulaic with the colors being just entirely one uniform color, how the robotic people just look like theyre japanese synths/just synths from fallout 4.
entirely missing the point of it all, *honestly looks way too similar to Brink*
a quote from a review of the first marathon game by Mandaloregaming (please watch these, these show how much the games look amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9rMu1XYB98 )
"its like you have all these enemy types with bright colors variations and they look cartoony, but in a stylistic way thats very appealing to the eyes"
Now you may be wondering why I'm even talking about this at all, well recently Bungie laid off a lot of staff, and I think its important that we talk about the amount of work that goes into these games.
reinventing the wheel shouldnt be your go to answer when coming back to a series, all the work the devs who worked on Marathon 1 to Infinity shouldn't be just a note in a devs log.
*it should never be taylor swifts cover of september by earth wind and fire* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDnphYTb0Q
