“When I talk about Marathon on the internet, I hear a common refrain. It has lodged in people’s minds. They play for hours, watching time just disappear. Sometimes, people tell me they’re dreaming about the game. I’m dreaming about it too”
“The thing about Marathon is that the entire game is a puzzle”
“Marathon is a game that offers you a map and says “figure out how to stay alive” and then lets a lot of the video game occur inside your head. The stakes, the tension, the drama from each run is something you determine”
“Running in Marathon is nerve wracking, by the way. Everything you do makes a sound, and everything that makes a sound can attract an enemy. Opening doors makes a sound, and closing a door makes a louder sound. Looting makes a sound. Crouch-walking makes a sound. All these sounds are distinct from each other—you learn a lot about what’s going around you by just listening. The most information rich sound in Marathon is running. It is loud, even louder when you do it through water, and you can very accurately find the source of running and gunfire by listening closely and following what you hear. The most dangerous thing in Marathon is giving information about your whereabouts to another runner, because quite frequently they’ll kill you shortly after”
“You decide which puzzle you are solving each run. Are you playing the “loot everything and sneak out like a ghost” game, or the “kill everything you see” game? You’re also allowed to change your mind, go from ghost to murderer, within a single run”
“I turn this beautiful puzzle over in my head every night before I go to sleep, every morning upon waking. And that’s not even getting into the lore, which sometimes is called to the front of my mind when I’m living my normal life, reflected in everything I do and see. One of the factions is an evil McDonald’s that’s merged with Monsanto; another, anarchists that are absolutely willing to firebomb a Walmart in their quest to rid the universe of corps; another is basically just Amazon”
“It’s insightful speculative fiction that looks at the world of the gig economy and makes the bodies of workers literally expendable, designed to be killed by their manufacturers”
“The true sickos who love what it’s doing cannot stop playing it, not even in their dreams”