Marathon’s revival is a little strange for the series, pivoting away from a single-player experience to a multiplayer extraction shooter. It will not feature any individual story missions, nor cutscenes, instead relying on players to string together fragments of lore left around in the game.
Without a single-player campaign,Marathonwill have to do a lot of work to tell the story of its deep and rich world. Fortunately, in this regard, Bungie has spent more than a decade showing how to tell a story indirectly, asDestiny’s lore has routinely been a strong point for the live service looter-shooter. With this expertise, and if the incredible cinematic is anything to go off,Marathoncould set the bar for how to tell a story in the extraction shooter genre.
Marathon Could Set the Benchmark for Narrative in Extraction Shooters
Extraction games and Battle Royales have not typically been regarded as leaders in storytelling. The straight-shootingTarkovis very focused on putting its gameplay loop first, andHunt: Showdownleverages the mythology of the American bayou for its flavor, while Epic does everything it can to makeFortnitecrossovers with as many IPs as possible.
Bungie’s storytelling prowess, on the other hand, is undeniable. The originalHalotrilogy andReachwere huge successes for Xbox, and thestory of Master Chief is still legendary. When Bungie moved toDestiny, it showed that in spite of many stumbles, the new world it had created was arguably richer than the one it had left behind.
This is what could prove to beMarathon’s secret weapon. The extraction genre is ripe for a disruptor to come in with a fresh approach, and the game already has a whole treasure chest of old lore to help flesh out the world. One thing thatMarathoncan borrow fromDestinyis the latter’s ability to set events up in lore, and then bring them to the forefront in a grand story at some point years later.
Bungie Has a Lot of Tools at Its Disposal to Revolutionize Extraction Storytelling
Bungie has already shown off its mastery of storytelling withMarathon’s cinematic short film. Directed by Alberto Mielgo ofLove, Death and Robotsfame, the collaboration sparked a lot of renewed interest inMarathon’s lore, and if Bungie can incorporate more elements like this into the game’s story, it should drive a lot of hype.
Bungie has a knack for creative, community-led stories, such as the recentMarathonARG that trickled out onto social media. The studio has frequently used in-game secrets to encourage players to collaborate on huge puzzles, such as theCorridors of Time fromSeason of Dawn, andMarathoncould pull ideas from this to hide puzzle pieces around its maps for players to piece together, to eventually reveal something bigger.
Lore content creators on social media were some of the first people to bringDestiny’s fascinating world to the attention of the game’s fans when the IP was new, shedding light on all the stories many players had missed. Bungie should be hoping that it can foster this kind of community again withMarathon, as lore discussion can keep people around even during periods of low player engagement to find out what has developed in the lore.
Bungie has a lot of experience in crafting long-running stories, going fromDestiny’s weak original story, which many fans thought was weak, to narratives such as the incredibleForsaken, just to name one. If it can learn fromDestiny’s initial missteps,Marathoncould launch with a surprisingly strong story, and even those who are skeptical about an extraction shooter may be interested in finding out more about the game, if only to see what Bungie is building up to.
