By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Publication Date: 2026-02-27 17:05:00
Among the first things you see in the Marathon reboot playtest is a close-up of a barcoded moth, gleefully chowing on some larval diodes. It’s not even the first cybernetic insect motif I’ve encountered in an FPS this week, but it speaks to me. Friends, we are all that kooky little bug, crawling down overheated silicon canyons, nuzzling at chips, for this is the Nvidia era, the Nvidiascene, and the whole world has become a GPU, dedicated to generating recipe ideas for the three edible objects in your fridge.
Quick, shoot it! Blow it all to hell! Ah, but first you have to complete the prologue. A dreamslick of Modern Warfare briefings and WipEout iconography spills you out onto a weather-beaten hillside, there to learn the basics of health and shield replenishment, melee attacks, and inventory management. Having pocketed your first handful of credits, you break the floor grill in a locked-down bunker, squidging down a tube of serial numbers like you’re exiting the womb.
There are red-eyed robot squads to headshot as you comb a couple of cracked plastic habitats for scrap and crafting materials. I kind of love this point in any looting game, the point when all the specific loot varieties do not make a lick of sense, and death comes quickly while you peer in confusion at the nobbly doodads in your inventory. Nuzzle those chips, little bug! Nuzzle until it all becomes second nature.
I enjoyed my first hour in Marathon’s…
