Whereas Marathon can be a PvEvP multiplayer shooter that focuses on gamers taking over AI-controlled NPCs in addition to different gamers throughout giant ranges, sport director Joe Ziegler has revealed why Bungie made the choice to not embody proximity chat as certainly one of its communication options.
Talking to PCGamer, Ziegler revealed that the first motive for skipping the function for Marathon was due to the potential toxicity amongst gamers it causes. For context, proximity chat in a sport signifies that, relying on the place a participant is within the sport’s world, they might or might not be capable to hear and talk with different gamers by means of voice. Whereas this provides loads of possibilities for emergent storytelling by means of participant interactions, it additionally has the draw back of not permitting gamers to filter out whose voice they will or can’t hear.
“In terms of [proximity chat], I don’t suppose we’re towards the expertise of it, to be honest,” stated Ziegler. “I feel the problem is how to ensure we’re making a protected atmosphere for gamers within that house.”
“I don’t suppose anybody actually has an excellent answer to that simply but. As a result of we’re so devoted to creating certain that we’re making a protected house the place we don’t have gamers simply flaming one another or doing horrible issues to at least one one other, I feel we’re not able to spend money on prox chat till we have now an answer.”
Extraction shooters specifically, together with different adjoining genres like battle royales, have a tendency to learn fairly a bit from proximity chat as a function. Owing to the style’s emphasis on scavenging for assets and making an attempt to make it out alive, proximity chat usually provides an additional layer of pressure, and typically even results in conditions the place two gamers are nervously negotiating with one another, as an illustration.
“I feel that’s the place we stand proper now,” Ziegler stated. “Like, if it was magical and we may one way or the other provide you with that answer, I feel we completely would do it. However proper now, it’s a problem that many corporations try to determine.”
In the end, it seems to be like Bungie will take participant suggestions under consideration in terms of the potential for proximity chat to be added to Marathon. As Ziegler himself defined, toxicity gamers is certainly an actual factor that always tends to happen in aggressive video games, and as soon as an answer to that is found out, we’d see extra video games with proximity chat down the road.
In one other interview, Ziegler additionally spoke about how Bungie desires to supply an extraction shooter expertise by means of Marathon that additionally permits gamers to get into the style’s “survival storytelling” facets with out having to cope with the jank and “cruft” that video games within the style are recognized for.
Marathon is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X/S, and can be popping out on September 23. Over the weekend, Bungie formally revealed what gameplay within the upcoming title will appear like. At launch, gamers will be capable to play by means of 3 maps, with 6 distinct Runners to select from.
