They don't have a snowball's chance in hell. They worked their asses off to make changes for season 2 that were supposed to turn the game around with PVE and more content.. and within 9 days of release they were back to pre-season 2 numbers. IE, flatline. They bet the ranch on season 2 and less than half of previous players even bothered to show up for it, and the ones that did show up were gone in just over a week's time.
No one cares. Marathon - conceptually, has not caught on.
People say that gameplay is more important than anything, but I think there's more to it.
With Halo, for instance, people played the campaign and then became attached to Master Chief as a character, the story, Spartans, etc. So when you played online, you were one of those Spartans. You were "part of something" even in a vague way. It created a sense of attachment.
Marathon? The whole conceit is that you send your consciousness into a disposable "shell" to fulfill an objective. If it breaks, you can just send another. The given shell doesn't matter. How does a player create an attachment to their character if - by their very purpose, they don't matter?
Overwatch became an overnight success not only because it was a fun game, but people became instantly attached to the lively, interesting characters. People became attached, had favorites, and then wanted to buy skins and accessories for them. That attachment creates stickiness keeping them from leaving.
Marvel Rivals became an overnight success because not only is the gameplay fun, but it features dozens of characters that people love and are familiar with, and have an attachment to. So now they can buy costumes and accessories for their favorite characters. That attachment creates stickiness keeping them from leaving.
Marathon- from the ground up- was designed seemingly ignorant of these ideas, on top of having an absolutely garish art direction and virtually unreadable UI. The whole design ethos, from the ground up, feels like it was built to capitalize on the sweaty live service shooter market that has already dried up, without truly understanding what made those things successful in the first place.
I haven't played Overwatch in.. 7... 8 years? Blizzard has gone to shit and I'm still mad about the whole Overwatch 1 > 2 > 1 thing, and backpedaling from PvE. ...But I still reference and quote Overwatch when I'm playing games with friends. When you say "I need healing" or "GEEE GEEE" at the end of a match, people instantly get the reference.
And that's the difference between a well designed game that captures its audiences, and .. well, Marathon. In 7 to 8 years, no one is going to remember a fuckin' thing about Marathon other than it was ugly and a colossal disappointment for everyone involved.
