- Marathon game director Joe Ziegler has shared new plans for Marathon as the game’s Steam player count drops
- 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 has revealed new content plans for Marathon Season 2 and beyond as the game’s Steam player count continues to drop.
As the first season of the first-person shooter (FPS) draws to a close, game director Joe Ziegler has shared what the team has learned after two months of launch in a new blog post and outlined what it aims to change going forward, including the introduction of new PvE experiences.
“With the first season off Marathon we’ve created a strong core community,” Ziegler said. “We’ve embarked on a multi-season journey built around growing from the seed of this strong community. We’re looking to address some pain points for players.”
Those pain points include making the game “less grindy, more rewarding,” improving UI/UX, matchmaking, solo and duo play, the endgame meta, and “smoothing onboarding.”
Bungie also wants to introduce new “fun and thought-provoking content” such as updated zones, Runner shells, combatants, looting and building systems that make progress more interesting.
The executive 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 mid to latter half of the season.
“The experimental mode at the beginning of the season will focus more on PVE, but with a slight touch of PVP,” Ziegler said. “The second experimental mode will be a PVE-only mode focused on crews tasked with completing objectives together and making some progress across matches.
“We will continue to run experimental queues beyond these two offerings for Season 2 and beyond, testing the waters around other mechanics (such as perhaps a more purely PVP-focused mode) with the potential for these to become part of the core game loop or permanent new ways to play.”
In addition to Season 2, which launches on June 2, Bungie will improve the onboarding process for new players and, in addition to Season 3, change the contract system to improve how players interact with Priority and other contracts.
Bungie’s new plan comes as MarathonThe number of Steam players continues to decline. At launch, the game had an all-time high of 88,337 players and is now at less than 15% of that, according to SteamDB. At the time of writing, there are just over 6,000 players in the game.
From the lengthy blog post, it’s clear that Bungie is looking to bring new players into the fold, as it even admits that the game is “overwhelming to learn.” It also aims to improve the experience for the few dedicated players who stick around, like bringing Duos back for Season 2 with a rotating Duos queue and the new PvE and PvP lite modes.
The studio even acknowledges the inconsistency of the game, understanding that new players can “hit a wall” and admitting that it’s still “figuring out the balance mix in the endgame.”
With the detailed roadmap officially laid out, let’s hope Bungie can turn things around.
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