Extracting is fun?

Extraction shooters have never been a thing that I would've thought I would be interested in. I dabbled in games that had mini versions of extraction shooters that were fun since the main part of the game was enjoyable to be in its playground.

Watching from afar on Twitch live or on YouTube, I liked the tense gameplay of search for goodies while trying to avoid getting wiped out from another team of players waiting for the right opportunity to plunder all your hard earned loot. Even with these extraction shooters mainly setup for team play, solo queuing felt doable and quite frankly, more exhilarating since the odds are more against you.

With Bungie releasing their own Extraction shooter with Marathon, I decided now is the time to stop being on the sidelines and jump into the fray. Thankfully the price of admission is free with the server slam event going on to work out all the kinks in the servers before the game goes live March 5th, 2026.

My first match was easy and felt like the game was programmed to make your first time engaging enough to hook you for more rounds. After another few matches, it got more difficult my a considerable margin. Since there are other players vying for the same thing as you, firefights are bound to happen. More-so when blood thirsty gamers are looking to take out the whole entire server to show their dominance and collect all the treasures left on the digital corpses left in their wake of destruction.

In my age and the precious time that I don't have available to play video games, having every match end up a final round world series tournament for the grand prize is not inducing the fun I would like to have with my limited time. I know, I can go ahead and play something else that is more considerate of my time, but sometimes you want to play the new hotness that everyone is talking about.

This whole thought process that was running laps in my head finally came to what I wanted when it comes to extractions shooters, more PvE vs PvP. I'm no programmer and can't begin to fathom how hard it is to turn an idea into a full blown video game, but how hard can it be to add PvE modes to these types of games? Would it be easier to add zones inside the maps that are strictly PvE for people that like the idea of scouring for loot while fighting off NPCs instead of elite gamers melting you from existence?

Again, I know people that have similar issues the PvPvE extraction shooters can find other things to play instead of airing out our grievances with how we want a game to cater to our wants and needs. I would like to hope that developers at least had us type of gamers in their minds and can come up with a satisfying solution for us. Arc Raiders has players teaming up more than going after each others throats, which could happen in Marathon once the games has been out for long enough for those type of players to occupy the servers.

Am I going to endure and play more Marathon when it releases March 5th, 2026? Most likely not right away. With the harsher gameplay and demand for players to start off with a higher skillset people like me don't possess without plenty of time already versed in extraction shooters, I'd could spend my time in other games with less time commitment that I've been putting off for a little bit. What Marathon has done for me is that it's got me interested in a genre of videogames that I didn't think I would like. I can say for certain I will be back to extract the loot with the best of them when the time is right for me.