Marathon has recaptured the Destiny multiplayer magic almost instantly

The extraction shooter is one heck of a conversation starter

I’ve been playing multiplayer games with the same group of friends for over a decade now. Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say multiplayer game. I’m part of a Destiny clan that has spent countless hours shooting and looting in Bungie’s MMO. Though our interest in Destiny 2 has waned in recent years, our Discord is still lively. We’re always on the hunt for the next game that will unite us; you can always find someone in the general voice channel scoping out a hot new thing. After years of searching, it seems like our prayers have been answered: Marathon fever has taken hold.

That’s no surprise. Of course a group of people who love Bungie games would love another Bungie game with a fair amount of shared DNA. But what is surprising is that it’s not just my clanmates who want to squad up with me. Since its launch, I’ve had more friends asking me to play than I have for any multiplayer game in recent memory. I’ve walked tons of new Runners through their first contracts. I’m in multiple Discord servers with “lfg” channels. Even when I’m not playing, I’m still getting texts from friends — from a wide range of unrelated friend circles — gushing about a cool new thing they found in the game. As a multiplayer game, Marathon sure seems to have it.

What is it? That’s a complicated question I’ve been thinking about a lot as of late. It’s that intangible thing that separates short-term curiosity from a social watering hole. With Marathon, there are some simple gamefeel answers that explain the draw. (Bungie sure knows how to make a fun shooter!) But the more I play, the more I’ve come to understand that Marathon’s social staying power, however long it lasts, is no accident.

Marathon isn’t doing anything terribly new on its surface. It’s an extraction shooter where three-person squads drop into a map, gather as much loot as possible, and escape before they’re gunned down by other players or ruthless robots. That on its own is a powerful format for friends who want a game to play together. An extraction shooter requires tight communication at every level. Every loot chest is an invitation to talk, as you discuss who best benefits from the gear inside. A squadmate spotting another player begins an open forum where the team must decide if they’re going to attack or run. Even deciding when it’s time to skeddaddle with your loot versus staying put and taking a bigger risk is a call for a quorum. Extraction shooters are excellent conversation starters.

Marathon has all of those strengths and more. Its Contracts, mini-quests that give all three players their own objectives to chase within a round, create another opportunity for discussion. My runs usually begin with the team talking through the best route to take in order to complete three Contracts in one go. Let’s go here, here, then here. There’s also the hazardous planets, filled with hidden turrets and poisonous plants that will catch you off guard if you’re not careful. All of this culminates in the endgame Cryo Archive area, which contains the complexity and challenge of a Destiny raid. You need to talk to survive. Sometimes camaraderie is born from danger.

Even when there isn’t an active threat present, there are still plenty of opportunities to chat about what you’re doing and seeing. The flood of confusing resources you can loot, for instance, begs players to ask one another what everything does. What the hell do I do with unstable diodes?

Then there’s the simple fact that the world looks so damn cool. So many of my early game chats were just centered around my team appreciating the art direction or the use of bold colors like lime green. I can’t say that I’ve ever had conversations like that while playing PUBG, Arc Raiders, Highguard, or countless other games I’ve tried with friends.

Bungie knows that a long-tailed game has to be more than just a good hang. There is no shortage of games that check that box. (Hell, I even got a fun evening or two with friends out of Foamstars.) Experiences like that are interchangeable; Marathon is not. It doesn’t just present you with a mechanically rich game that feels great, but an engrossing world too. When a run ends and my squad gets dumped back out to the main menu, there’s usually a period where we all take a moment to progress the story — reading a new piece of lore, chatting with one of the freaky vendors, etc. That’s another invitation for discussion, as we stop to ask what the hell is up with the blood-thirsty Arachne death cult. When we log off, those chats turn into Discord messages and texts. It’s as much a shooter as it is a community-driven mystery game. (Just look at its successful ARG component as early proof.)

All of this elevates Marathon from a game that’s novel for a few rounds to a space I want to role-play in with my friends continually. There’s just so much to talk about, even when I’m jumping into a solo run as Rook and extracting a good war story to take back to the crew. That’s what I crave from a multiplayer game: a digital water cooler that’s never empty. I don’t know how long it will last in the volatile world of live service, but I’ll keep queueing up as long as it keeps giving me good excuses to spend a night chatting with my buds.