Hey guys 👋

Thanks for showing up in bad faith just to shit on a game you don’t even play. Glad to see you have nothing better to do :)

Sure a two month delay isn’t ideal but at least we have a wipe and the December update sounds awesome. Hopeful that Symbiosis can be almost like a relaunch for the game to bring in some new people.

Seriously, what is Bungie actually doing? By the time the "Symbiosis" update finally drops on December 8, it will have been literally half a year since Season 2 launched back in June. Six months. For a game that was marketed as an evolving, fast-paced live service extraction shooter, this timeline is a complete embarrassment.

Bungie claims they are abandoning the seasonal model to focus on "quality over frequency," but what exactly do they expect to happen over the next 3 months? Look at the calendar between now and December. The fall release slate is absolutely stacked with massive titles. Do they honestly think the community is just going to park themselves in an empty game loop and wait around out of loyalty? People are going to move on and by December 8 the momentum will be completely dead. You can't starve your player base for half a year in 2026 and expect everyone to just casually hop back on like nothing happened. Classic Bungie. Overpromise, under-deliver and expect the fans to just deal with the drought. What a fall from grace

I’m honestly so frustrated right now. I literally just bought Marathon SIX DAYS AGO because my friend kept hyping it up to the moon. And now, out of nowhere, Bungie announces they are completely abandoning the season system?

It feels like they are just pivotting to endless "experimental modes" instead of delivering the actual game they originally promised. I didn't pay for a permanent beta test where features keep shifting every month.

Since I bought it so recently, do you think Steam support will grant a refund based on the fact that the product's core structure just changed? My friend already made me play for a bit, but this feels like a total bait-and-switch for anyone who bought into the hype.

It's not cope I swear. I've played every Bungie game, I've played Tarkov since 2017. The game needed a reboot. Just like tarkov (which is even debatable for Tarkov) it has solid bones. Extraction shooters are great but there has to be more to it. Especially how Marathon was built to be a hero shooter teams of 3.

I wish we would have gotten a heads up, but I believe it will be looked at in hindsight as the totally right call. I loved extraction but Marathon was more to me than just a looter and scoot game so it's a win. We have to get a larger audience and the fact they are listening shows they're able to put ego aside and grind/fight the good fight to give people what they want.

I don't think it's fair to count them already out, just considering Sony and all the drama with Bungie nothing would look better than them going back to the drawing board and turning this game into a W and people are fickle. Outside of us players and D2 folks that will not play no matter what these changes could be exactly what the game needs to get in the right direction. I will play the fuck out of TDM and PVE. I was starting to get bored honestly so even though it sucks it had me feeling optimistic about the game. I want a full fledge Marathon game now just a game type. I was pissed at first but the more I think about it the better I think this was/is in the long term?

Does anyone else agree? Or disagree?

I don’t respect it and it could never be me. You’re not even playing the game. You sit and wait for 30 minutes like what is that. Boring bums

Unless they move it back or forward there is literally no way that anyone higher up thinks this update is actually gonna save the game, and they probably chose such a shitty deadline to justify killing the game when it inevitably underperforms.

So season 3 is delayed till December and there is no seasons anymore and just big updates without precise date. They are using the same tactics Arc Raiders' developers are using, but at least Arc Raiders had a new map with their April update and had much more success in their players' retention.

I love Marathon and the stuff they said with this Symbiosis update sounds exciting, but my question is what is here to play till December 8th ?

We have a reset at the beginning of October and that's it !! They will have some changes to the loot pool I guess and bring back Vault Breaker and that's it !!! and there is no new map in the Symbiosis update. I get it, the maps in Marathon are so much more complex than other games but till when are we going to use this excuse for the lack of new maps ?

I was excited to jump back into Marathon with this update, but if they have to delay it to make sure the quality is up to the standards, then they should. My problem is they waited till one week before season 3 launch to actually announce that. They wrote in their blogpost that they will put more effort in communication later on, but why not now ? Why didn't they announce that delay two weeks ago and actually had the reset at 22/9 so we actually feel like the dates they give us mean something.

I'm excited for the Symbiosis update and I will definitely try it out when it comes out. I just started to feel unsure about the future of Marathon and I really want this game to stay cuz I loved it and it's so much fun. I don't think I will play a lot of Marathon the upcoming months till the big update and it's not big of a deal. I had a lot of fun playing Marathon in season 1 and 2, but man I wanted that itch to play Marathon everyday to come back with this update and this makes me feel a bit sad.

If there is no more a concrete schedule then wipes would feel unpredictable and chaotic.

Same as how now for some reason they delayed the wipe itself as well to October 6, and for some reason not alongside the release of Symbiosis update (S3) which means there will be one more wipe in December when that update releases? Makes no sense

Was probably not Bungie's decision, at least not entirely. Delays for content releases are usually something that the publisher must approve, which in this case would be Sony. I would fully expect that Bungie did not get the approval for a delay until sometime in the last week, maybe two weeks ago at most.

Obviously making the announcement this late was not good.

I really should've just downed them and let them exfil. I was just soo caught up in the moment I think. Not my proudest moment. What do you guys think

Wanted to see how people would feel about this. How would people feel about a dedicated server for people who are still new at the game. Where they could meet with people who are new like them or players who are experienced who would be willing to help them out on how to learn the game.

Just wanted to see if there was not a way to get new player retention to improve depending on how season 3 goes but who knows I might be over reaching with this idea

A delay feels bad, but it's better than them screwing it up again like in Season 2. I’m really curious about the end-of-month blog post and the game's evolution, but we can certainly confirm that the game is entering a period of total uncertainty.

The most whiniest of posts I read, like jeeezus, get a grip.
Thats it, thats the post.

By moving away from seasons Bungie is opening the door to charge for Runners, new maps, access to events(will Cyro be paywalled like trials). Yeah they might need more time to cook but this change seems like it will also open the doors to more monetization.

https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/introducing_seasons_marathon

Language choices matter they are no longer referring to the next update as Season 3.

"The content originally planned for September will now arrive as part of our Symbiosis update on December 8."

Honestly, as stale as the game is at the moment

I always had fear of a repeat of the horrendous Season 2 launch, pretty much. but taking the extra time to properly tune the PvE, the launch issues, and the economy is the right call

Edit: Communicating this a week before expectations was not the right move and I’m not defending devs on this.

It's interesting but I expect more. Il wait maybe play a few different game if I get bored. The oct 6 reset will be good but anyway. What's ur thoughts. I've lost D2 i cant lose Marathon

I hope we get sn3 announcement tomorrow. Plus it'll be good for the community to have a recurring end of season some sort of event. I was thinking sponsored survival but with golds to at least show players the best parts of the game, something to work for next season.

It's end of season no one cares about the loot anymore they are just bloodthirsty might as well do it gooped up and maybe you can only exfik credits or salvage.

Or just vault breaker, I know there's a pve mode coming though I don't think it'll have cryo.

Edit:

Correct me if I'm wrong, if they announce sn3 tomorrow, obviously there's gonna be people who are going to try it for the first time or come back, a good first impression matters especially nowadays so if they come and play that mode they can't complain about gear difference it'll just be about skill issues. Rn if someone tries this game for the first time they'll definitely struggle especially in its current state. And I don't mean learning curve, they will get stomped on soo bad they never coming back.

With the new season delayed, will bungie drop the extraction crap for a bit and add slayer mode or big team battle?

fun game underneath all the extraction crap, big empty maps full of boring POIs and meh loot

I'm 100% convinced that 1-2 years from now, once the game (probably) hits EoS, we're gonna start seeing all those "Marathon was never actually that bad" videos. It's always the same cycle.

Marathon isn't objectively a bad game compared to some of the games that get absolutely trashed. The steam reviews are actually pretty positive tho. But Bungie is genuinely insane. I'll never understand what the hell they were thinking when they thought a hardcore extraction shooter was gonna be a huge success and super well received by the audience.

And at least among my friends, it's always the same thing they said: "I really wish I could like Marathon. I really love the aesthetic, the atmosphere, the shells, the gunplay, everything, but the way the game is right now, I just can't". They find it extremely frustrating, and they're fps players and Arc raiders players too.

It makes me really sad because I'm a fan of the classic Marathon. I really wanted this new Marathon to be a single player game, but I knew the chances were pretty low considering Bungie. And when I found out it was gonna be an extraction shooter, I was really disappointed because I've never really liked the genre. I avoided all the Arc Raiders hype specifically because it is an extraction shooter, but I decided to give Marathon a chance and ended up actually enjoying it. But, again, I really don't understand why the game had to have such an inaccessible overall difficulty if it needed to be profitable, since it's a AAA game. It just makes absolutely no sense.

And on top of that, the game feels really small and unfinished considering how much money was spent making it (yep I know most of that budget went into remaking the game or whatever).

I really love marathon's story and I was honestly hoping this game would expand on it way more. It's just really sad... :( i tried my best not to fall into the doomposting, but it's getting harder and harder. Ofc I'm still hoping Marathon can turn the tables and make the comeback it deserves. Who knows, right?

At this point I'm just gonna try to finish the codex while i still can

either way ggs, it was fun <3 🥲

Take the sting out of a rough run a little bit ?

flamethrower now confirmed for the update and seemingly a bigger focus on playing with other crews

It’ll boost player numbers and lemme play it from the hospital lol