Bungie HAS to do gang buster numbers with Marathon, they are on thin ice with Sony who spent billions acquiring them.
It won't be enough to just be ok. Sony expects big returns on that massive investment.
Marathon has the same weakness of every online live service game.
Once the perception is that the game is dying, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A negative feedback loop of people leaving because of lower player numbers, which people take notice of, which makes people leave, which people take notice of... etc etc etc.
Helldivers 2 is an exception for a reason, HD2 succeeded in part because of the community that formed around the game. It played into the Star ship troopers' theme hard, and people picked up on that, they continue to play into other pop culture elements which is appealing to people. I mean just go look at the steam community page for HD2, it is a never-ending stream of memes and sht posts. But marathon has none of the charm or identity that HD2 offers. The neon puke "Runners" that walk everywhere do not have the same appeal or ability to create a community.
I mean people had to convince them to add proximity chat in the game, how is a community supposed to organically form within the game if just talking to other players was not even a consideration at the start.
It is entering a niche market when people have already had their fill of games of this genre.
I am 100% certain Marathon will not last, the HZD game has even less of a chance.
None of the spin off titles in the Horizon universe have succeeded. People like HZD because it's a single-player story driven RPG with Alloy. That's it. The extended world of HZD beyond the adventures of Alloy is just not that interesting.
