Bungie’s Marathon launched over a week ago, and the game seems to have found itself in a very interesting position. General audiences on Steam appear to be enjoying the game, but on the other hand, audience scores on Metacritic tell a different story.
Reviews from critics have also been almost nonexistent so far. This is because Bungie asked critics to delay their reviews when Marathon launched, and most have obliged by the studio’s request. As of today, the game only has a handful of reviews on Metacritic, but the latest round of published reviews has given Marathon its initial average Metascore on the platform.
The bad news, however, is that this score is far from impressive. In fact, it paints the game in quite a negative light.
After 6 critic reviews, Marathon has an average score of 72/100 on Metacritic. Note that because of how many outlets have chosen to go about reviewing the title based on Bungie’s request to delay the reviews, the platform contains multiple reviews without a score for now.
Those impressed by Marathon have praised its fundamental strengths that help the title stand out in a saturated live-service market. As expected of Bungie, the core gunplay and art direction have been deemed solid in various Marathon reviews. On the flip side, some have dubbed the game bland and par for the course compared to other extraction shooters.
Of course, what makes the current score so surprising is that Marathon is currently Bungie’s worst-rated title on the platform. The likes of Destiny and Destiny 2 currently boast scores of 76/100 and 83/100, respectively. The likes of Halo 3 and Halo Reach are also rated much higher.
When ignoring the individual expansions from Destiny and Destiny 2, no other release from Bungie has a score this low on the platform.
The silver lining here is that Bungie’s games typically tend to improve over time. This was certainly the case for both Destiny titles, and it would not be far-fetched to expect the same of Marathon.
Also, as more reviews come in, it’s entirely possible that the score will improve and pull ahead of Destiny, which stands at a close 76/100, as mentioned earlier. Upon Bungie’s request, most reviews have been pushed back to the end of March, so Metacritic’s average score should tell a more complete story in two more weeks.
