Once upon a time, Bungie were quite highly regarded for their storytelling finesse in the way that Destiny unfolded across many years. Aside from the general discontent in Bungie’s current approach to Destiny’s narrative, there’s also been quite a big stain upon the series for a while, which is the fact that a huge portion of the story can’t even be played any more due to having been vaulted. With Marathon, Bungie seem to want to do things a bit differently.
Speaking to GamesRadar, Marathon creative director Julia Nardin recently explained that for Bungie it’s “important that players can jump into Marathon at any time. They’ll always be able to uncover the mysteries of Tau Ceti’s past while experiencing its present. We want every season to be a new entry point, and for new players to be able to understand what’s going on regardless of how long we’ve all been running.” To me, this certainly reads like the criticism around their approach to vaulting expansions has been heard, at least for their latest game (that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon for Destiny 2).
Despite all the hubbub about whether Marathon is even going to survive or not, Nardin also made it clear that they have big plans for the shooter’s story. “We know where we want to take the story over the next few years, but I don’t want to say it’s completely ‘locked in’ because it’s important to us that our players be able to help shape it,” she explained. It’s that community involvement in shaping the story that Nardin says is “part of the magic of playing a live service game.”
That community involvement aspect already seems to be taking place, given that Marathon’s weekend-only tough as nails Cryo Archive map had to be unlocked through an ARG initially. Certainly an interesting approach, though I wonder if that’s too steep a hill to climb for those playing slightly more casually to get involved in. Also worth noting is that any story set before the time the game takes place in is “locked,” so don’t go expecting to be able to change what’s already been set in stone.
