With Bungie's latest new offering since Destiny 2 due to drop, they held a "Server Slam" - an open preview weekend they hoped would capture new players after seemingly a disappointing amount of pre-orders. 

As Esports Director at RIZE - Jack aka "Merge" puts his own talents (Top200 Overwatch, Top5 Splitgate, and more) to the test out new games and judge their worthiness of the Club's early adoption in them. Marthon isn't necessarily a title relevant for competitive play, but it didn't stop him from dropping his two cents on the game thus far.

Server Slam Review 

There is no mistaking who made Marathon. From the first drop, Bungie’s fingerprints are everywhere, stamped across its bold visual language, fluid animation work, and razor sharp audio design. This is a game with an identity. The neon soaked environments and stark sci fi styling linger in the mind long after a session ends, giving Marathon a cohesion that many multiplayer shooters struggle to achieve.

That presentation extends into the soundscape. Enemy movement, distant firefights, environmental cues, all of it is clearly communicated through smart audio mixing. I rarely felt confused about what was happening around me. Even in chaotic encounters, the sound design provides a steady stream of information that makes decision making feel deliberate rather than reactive.

Moment to moment play benefits from that clarity. Looting is refreshingly brisk. Cracking open caches, hacking terminals, and sweeping up nearby items never becomes busywork. The interface gets out of the way, keeping the focus on movement and positioning. And movement is where Marathon genuinely shines. Boosters feel powerful yet precise, and traversal has a satisfying weight to it. There is a mechanical elegance to sprinting, sliding, and propelling yourself across the map that makes even simple repositioning enjoyable. It captures a sense of augmented agility that feels distinct within the genre.

Combat encounters show similar pedigree. The AI behaves aggressively and in coordinated groups, forcing you to respect positioning and cover. They push, flank, and punish hesitation. You can feel the lineage of a studio that has spent decades refining enemy behaviour. Animations are clean, readable, and polished throughout, reinforcing that premium production quality. Performance during my time with the server slam was stable enough to stay immersed, though it occasionally fell short of the smoothness I would hope for in a competitive shooter.

Yet for all that craft, Marathon frequently undercuts its own strengths.

The movement system is inventive, but a heat based limitation on sprinting and booster usage restricts it in practice. A temperature gauge discourages extended mobility, which dampens the exhilaration those mechanics promise. On top of that, the maps feel expansive to a fault. Crossing large stretches of terrain while carefully managing heat slows the overall tempo. What should feel liberating can instead feel restrained.

The loot loop, while mechanically efficient, lacks personality. Items appear as colored cubes with minimal visual distinction, making pickups blur together at a glance. There is little sense of discovering something special when the presentation feels so utilitarian. Ammo scarcity compounds the problem. Running dry is common, and entering a match without ample reserves can leave you scrambling early. Resource management should create tension, but here it often drifts into frustration.

Enemy durability further muddies the waters. Some AI opponents absorb an alarming amount of punishment, including sustained headshots that would reasonably be expected to secure a kill. That imbalance disrupts the core feedback loop of a shooter. When combined with the fact that enemies can spawn abruptly during certain activities, such as hacking a cache, encounters can spike from manageable to overwhelming in seconds. Solo players in particular may find themselves suddenly facing a small army without clear warning.

Player versus player engagements were harder to come by than expected. Tracking down opposing teams did not feel intuitive, and aiming down sights carried a sluggishness that may be tied to early loadout limitations. Gunplay never felt broken, but it lacked the snap that typically defines Bungie’s best work.

Perhaps the most divisive element is the hero and class system. Their presence feels disconnected from the rest of Marathon’s design. Abilities rarely deepen the looting or traversal mechanics in meaningful ways, and they introduce a layer of structure that does not naturally align with the game’s tone. Instead of reinforcing the core loop, they sit adjacent to it.

Marathon is clearly the product of a talented studio with immense experience in crafting shooters. Its aesthetic confidence, excellent audio design, and fluid traversal are genuine highlights. At the same time, pacing constraints, unremarkable loot presentation, uneven enemy tuning, and a somewhat awkward class system hold it back from fully realising its potential.

In a space already defined by heavy hitters, including Bungie’s own Destiny 2, Marathon needs a sharper sense of identity beyond its art direction. The foundations are strong and the issues feel fixable through balance passes and clearer systemic focus. Whether that refinement arrives quickly enough to carve out a lasting place in the genre remains to be seen.

⭐⭐⭐⚫⚫