Anti-social social game; the Marathon Experience after the honeymoon.
I previously enjoyed my time with Marathon. This was back when many Destiny players were excited about a new Bungie game set in an old, complicated narrative built by 90's boomer shooters of the same name by the same people. The game felt different - mostly because of its design language and art style, its narrative and its gameplay.
That's been ruined by the typical sweatlord assholes who fixate on one thing: their K/D statistic. They couldn't give less of a fuck about the story, they couldn't give less of a fuck about their impact on the playerbase. They gotta destroy the little pixels on their screens as fast as possible, shout gamer words, ignore friendly pleads of mercy, and they get some kind of sickening enjoyment out of it.
I get it, on a surface level. It's a PvPvE game, people can shoot at you so they're going to. But the lore of the game states that you might - might - be able to trust some runners.
I've not seen this behavior. I've heard that a dev at Bungie expressed frustration that the game has turned so hostile, but like... it rings as a bit deaf. There are no obvious mechanics to being friendly, and there's so much to gain from destroying other squads - so much loot to steal. We're also living in a time where a significant portion of society has grown a sickening desire for cruelty and violence; shooters have become the Gladiator arenas of ancient history, where blood is mindlessly spilled for the entertainment of the unwashed masses.
The thing is, players obsessed with PvP aren't reading your lore logs. They're not appreciating the setting or the narrative. Your game is only a means to an end, a way for them to click their mouse and delete total strangers from their screens. They couldn't give less of a fuck about the Drinkable Cheeseburger; if anything, they think it's cringe.
This is Bungie's fault. You designed a game where all the spoils go to the victor, and truces have no obvious advantage. This is your design at work. These are the consequences of your actions.
Marathon is a fantastic game. I love it. It's fun to play and it's fun to shoot UESC bots - it's even fun to get stomped by stronger bots - yet, it's been ruined by people who only think of Marathon's style and narrative as window dressing for their habitual collapse into trigger-happy violence regardless who they're shooting at. People on Reddit seem confused by the falling playerbase, but I'm not.
The community is killing the game, and it's because the developers of this game have no fucking idea how to balance mercy with violence. It seems they wanted this balance to be better judging by the presence of lore pages in-game that imply an opportunity for shaky alliances, but there's no in-game incentive or reward for doing so.
Sweatlords and tryhards aren't reading your writing. They're not looking at the game from the perspective of honest artistic engagement. They're not even really looking. They're searching for pixels that are vaguely Person Shaped and clicking buttons to make them disappear. It's all they care about.
That's the community you fostered, Bungie. You sought to create a game that was different, and instead you created the exact same PvP looter shooter everyone and their grandma is fucking sick of. This is your fault.