- Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler Shared New Plans for Marathon as the Game’s Steam Player Count Dwindles
- Bungie plans to reintroduce duos in Season 2 and new PvE and PvP-lite experiences
- The developer also wants to improve the onboarding process for new players.
Bungie revealed new content plans for Marathon Season 2 and beyond as the game’s Steam player count continues to decline.
As the first-person shooter (FPS) season comes to a close, game director Joe Ziegler shared what the team learned after two months of launch in a new blog post and outlined what they plan to change in the future, including the introduction of new PvE experiences.
“With the first season of Marathon we created a strong grassroots community,” Ziegler said. “We are embarking on a multi-season journey built around growing from the seeds of this strong community. We are looking to resolve some issues for players. »
These issues include making the game “less tedious, more rewarding”, improved UI/UX, matchmaking, solo and duo play, endgame meta, and “smooth onboarding”.
Bungie also wants to introduce new “fun and mind-blowing content”, such as updated areas, Runner shells, fighters, loot and building systems that make progression more interesting.
The director confirmed that the team is also exploring more “pure PVP, PVE and PVP-lite” experiences starting in Season 2 with two modes, one at the beginning and one towards the middle or second half of the season.
“The early season experimental mode will focus more on PVE, but with a slight touch of PVP,” Ziegler said. “The second experimental mode will be a PVE mode solely focused on crews tasked with completing objectives together and progressing through matches.
“We will continue to run experimental queues beyond these two offerings for Season 2 and beyond, testing the waters around other mechanics (like perhaps a more purely PVP-focused mode) with the possibility of these becoming part of the core gameplay loop or permanent new ways to play.”
Beyond Season 2, which begins June 2, Bungie will improve the onboarding process for new players and, beyond Season 3, will change the contract system to improve how players interact with Priority and other contracts.
Bungie’s new plan then arrives MarathonThe number of Steam players continues to decline. At launch, the game had an all-time peak of 88,337 players and is now less than 15% of that figure according to SteamDB. As of this writing, there are just over 6,000 players in the game.
From the lengthy blog post, it’s clear that Bungie is looking to attract new players, as it even admits that the game is “overwhelming to learn.” It also aims to improve the experience for the few dedicated players that remain, such as the return of Duos for Season 2 with a rotating Duos queue and new PvE and PvP-lite modes.
The studio even acknowledges the game’s inconsistency, understanding that new players may “hit a wall” and admitting that it is still “figuring out the balance of the endgame.”
With the detailed roadmap officially presented, let’s hope Bungie can turn things around.
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