Bloody Hell, Bungie! Marathon's Storytelling Has Me Muting My Mates, And That Can't Be Right.
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Bungie's upcoming Marathon might boast a brilliant cyberpunk narrative, but its current storytelling methods feel like a single-player game trying to yell over your mates on Discord – creating a paradoxical experience where you have to ditch your friends to properly enjoy the story in a game designed for co-op chaos.
Right, so picture this: you're knee-deep in some slick, cyberpunk future, trying to parse through dense lore about data-ghosts and corporate shenanigans, when suddenly your mate, Dave, starts detailing the truly questionable inflatable banana he's packed for his stag do. Sound familiar? Because apparently, for Bungie's upcoming extraction shooter, *Marathon*, that's not just a common Tuesday night – it's a fundamental design challenge.
Julian Benson over at Rock Paper Shotgun (who we're channelling this chaotic wizardry from, cheers Julian!) recently dove into *Marathon*'s early build, and his biggest takeaway struck a chord that's probably resonating across every Discord server on the planet. For a game built from the ground up to be a communal, multiplayer experience, its storytelling seems to be yelling, 'Oi, you! Pay attention to ME! And ONLY me!' It's like trying to appreciate a meticulously crafted magic spell while a goblin in the corner is loudly explaining the subtle nuances of his toenail fungus collection.
Now, you might be thinking, 'Jeff, mate, multiplayer games have always been a bit rubbish at story, haven't they?' And yeah, you've got a point. Plenty of online shooters treat their narrative like an afterthought, a quick 'here's why you're shooting these blokes' before unleashing the carnage. But here's the kicker with *Marathon*: it actually *looks* like its story is worth paying attention to. We're talking proper 'Ghost in the Shell' vibes mixed with William Gibson's dense, data-rich prose. Imagine a world where your consciousness is a digital nomad, flitting between synthetic shells amidst a 'tsunami of stimuli' – it's genuinely intriguing stuff, not just some generic 'bad guys did a thing' nonsense.
The game drenches your screen in 90s typefaces and glitchy visual artefacts, creating an atmosphere that absolutely screams 'I have a rich, complex narrative waiting to be unravelled!' And yet, that very presentation, brimming with cinematic moments and tutorial pop-ups, crumbles under the weight of shared experience. Trying to absorb a crucial faction intro while your co-op buddy is narrating his elaborate weekend batch-cooking plans? It's less immersive storytelling, more frustrating noise.
Bungie, bless 'em, does offer a lifeline: codex entries. After you finish a mission, a handy in-fiction report summarising who the new cyber-corp is and what their deal is gets chucked into your library. And fair play, it's useful for catching up when you've inevitably missed half the exposition because someone was mid-rant about their cat's latest misadventure. But let's be honest, flicking through a digital encyclopedia *after* the fact isn't quite the same as experiencing the story unfold organically, is it? It feels like reading the liner notes to a concert you just missed, rather than actually being there when the digital wizardry happened.
This isn't a problem unique to *Marathon*, of course. We've seen it in *Destiny 2*, and plenty of other multiplayer-focused titles that try to bolt on a cinematic, single-player style narrative to a chaotic co-op experience. It's like trying to read a gripping novel in the middle of a mosh pit. The intent is there, the content might even be brilliant, but the environment simply isn't conducive to absorbing it. Developers, it seems, often operate under the assumption that players are solo, mute, and laser-focused, when in reality, we're a glorious cacophony of banter, strategy, and entirely irrelevant observations.
So, what's the magic spell to fix this? Julian pondered this, recalling the genius of *Half-Life 2*'s Dr. Kleiner lab scene. Valve, master alchemists of immersion, crafted a single-player moment where you're locked in, forced to listen to vital lore, but crucially, still given tools to mess around – chucking boxes, smashing monitors. You're engaged, but also free within the constraints. It's brilliant for a solo adventure.
But for *Marathon*? Bloomin' impossible, mate. You can't just stick a squad of Runners in a digital broom closet while a talking head drones on about galactic politics. That would utterly contradict the game's DNA – a dynamic, squad-based extraction shooter where players are independently zipping through maps. It'd feel less like a gripping narrative and more like a mandatory corporate training video you're trying to skip.
It really boils down to this: cinematics and big blocks of text, the tried-and-true storytelling methods of single-player epics, simply aren't suited for a game where someone's likely shouting 'CONTACT LEFT!' or 'I'm out of meds, send help!' or 'Did you remember to defrost the chicken?' into your ear. Bungie has proven they can tell cracking stories – *Halo* is proof of that. But for *Marathon*, it feels like they're trying to solve a multi-dimensional puzzle with a single-purpose hammer. The tools don't fit the job, or perhaps, the job needs new tools entirely.
The core tension here is palpable: a game that looks like it has a genuinely compelling narrative, but requires you to isolate yourself from the very friends it's designed for you to play with, just to appreciate it. That's a bit of a paradox, isn't it? Like trying to enjoy a bustling market by closing your eyes and plugging your ears. It dampens the communal spark and leaves you wondering if the story, however well-written, truly belongs in *this* form. I don't pretend to have the magic formula for seamless multiplayer storytelling, but I reckon the wizards at Bungie (and indeed, across the industry) need to brew up something entirely new. Because at the end of the day, if playing with mates means missing the plot, then something's gone a bit sideways in the grand design of things. What do *you* reckon?
This wizardry was inspired by Julian Benson's insightful feature, 'Marathon's story is told like it's a single player game and that's no good when my friends are talking on Discord,' originally published on Rock Paper Shotgun (rockpapershotgun.com).
Tags: Marathon, Bungie, Game Design, Narrative, Multiplayer
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun