A Splinter Cell Would Suck During A Marathon

After one weekend of the server slam and a dozen more hours in the full release, Marathon, when played solo, is secretly a stealth game wrapped in a shooter’s skin.

For the most part, Marathon is meant to be played in squads of 3, as you take on contracts from one of the 6 different vendors in the game. But when you play as the Rook shell or queue for a game solo, Marathon changes from an intense team battle simulator to a stealth ops Splinter Cell-esque hide and assassinate loop.

Marathon currently has 7 different shells to play as, with Rook being a free loadout character with no stakes and all the rewards. Loading in as Rook, you are given a random loadout that, if you die, was never yours to begin with. Of the other 6 shells, Assassin currently lends itself best to solo play, if you want to risk bringing in your own gear. Its shell can go invisible as you lurk around the map for short periods of time, and the shell can also spawn a plume of smoke to cover open areas and objective points on the map.

In Marathon, coordination with your teammates and their shells’ abilities is vital to wiping out other squads. Getting the jump on enemies, knowing when to engage, and how to manage resources is the name of the game with Marathon. It usually comes down to pure numbers; the more damage and alive players you have/do, the more likely you are to survive the harsh world of Tau-Ceti.

As a solo player, you can throw all of that out of the window. Suddenly, when there is no Triage to heal you or recon by your side, giving up to date player locations, Marathon slows down to a single player action spy thriller. No longer are you able to run headfirst into a POI or dominate an area that’s occupied by players or UESC robots. The main focus now is: How quietly can you enter and exit buildings, where are the sounds around you coming from, and how are you going to take care of any threat that approaches you?

As I still work through the “early game” contracts, when playing solo, Assassin has been my go to shell of choice. Between the ability to go invisible or drop a plume of smoke at a moments notice, Assassin enables opportunity for quick clean kills and disappearing before anyone knows what happened.

My main goal when playing solo is to learn the maps a little more each time I get uploaded to my shell. As I continue to learn the ins and outs of Perimeter, each run I find myself stalking and hunting down other solo players with my suppressed magnum, something akin to a Hitman-type build. The pistol that can often take down enemies in 4-5 shots is lethal at close range, especially for those unaware of the ghostly figure that lurks in the labs of North and South Relay. For now, the silenced Magnum is only entering a map with me on solo runs. If I am going to be playing with 1-2 teammates by my side, having a suppressor on a close-range handgun feels counterintuitive.

Of course, you can still try the run-and-gun gameplay typically used while in a full party. But if you can handle the slowed-down game and selective firing management of playing a lurking assassin, Marathon sure can be rewarding. Knowing that somewhere on the same map as you, a fully kitted player is bringing you a heap of loot makes the few minutes of waiting in corners and shadows worth it.

While getting the drop on an unsuspecting blueberry is quite fun and worth the $40 price of admission to Marathon alone, the in-between moments of waiting for enemies can actually be unnerving and intimidating. Like a horror game, the sound of bots clicking and sulking around feels like an auditory minigame where you are trying to figure out if an AI is slowly haunting the halls nearby or Runner is on the floor above you stuffing their pockets with bags of poop.

It’s still early days for Marathon. As metas form, the playerbase evolves, and new patches hit Tau Ceti, runners will learn the ins and outs of where someone could be hiding in each map. If you are looking for a new challenge and enjoy the solo experience of Rook, adding some stakes to the equation with one of the other shells offers a totally different experience and will make you rethink almost everything about your playstyle.

If there is something that can be taken away from playing both solo and as a squad in Marathon, it is that Bungie has created a strong enough core gameplay experience through tight gunplay, map design, and overall aesthetic, that, regardless of party size, you are set for an engaging gameplay experience every run.