Enough with the Extraction Shooters

Virtually everyone who has caught a glimpse of Marathon agrees that its visual identity is unparalleled. However, it is fundamentally an extraction shooter—a genre that demands players navigate a high-stress environment governed by cryptic rules and a total lack of forgiveness. This design choice has sparked widespread longing for Bungie to have developed a more traditional single-player experience. Personally, I would go even further: it doesn’t even have to be Marathon. At this stage, I would settle for any top-tier FPS campaign.

[A brief disclaimer: This piece is unabashedly nostalgic for a bygone era of game design.]

The iteration of Marathon released on March 5 for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X stands as the antithesis of the cinematic shooter. Players, either solo or in small squads, are dropped into expansive exoplanet zones to scavenge for resources and extract before a timer expires. The stakes are brutal; a single mistake—whether at the hands of AI enemies or rival players—results in the total loss of progress. While the world-building is deep, the narrative is largely emergent, defined by the unscripted chaos of the gameplay loop rather than a curated story. Structured progression is sacrificed at the altar of player agency.

This follows the blueprint established by Arc Raiders, the 2025 third-person sensation known for its striking aesthetic. Set in a hauntingly beautiful post-apocalyptic Italy, Arc Raiders tasks players with gathering loot and escaping within a strict window. Much like Marathon, the storytelling is organic, fueled by the unique anecdotes players generate during a match. It is a sandbox where the player is the primary architect of the experience.

While this open-ended philosophy attracts millions, it lacks the “autopilot” comfort of a classic corridor shooter. Extraction shooters demand constant tactical vigilance, whereas traditional campaigns offer a different kind of thrill: the choreographed spectacle. I’m not necessarily hunting for high-brow literature, but I miss the expensive set pieces and the sense of momentum that comes from a well-paced “Point A to Point B” mission. There was a brief moment during the 2025 Game Awards when Highguard seemed poised to fill this void, only to reveal itself as another ill-fated live-service experiment. Wildlight Entertainment launched Highguard on January 26 with a solitary multiplayer mode; as of this week, the servers have already gone dark.

Even when major studios attempt a high-budget campaign, they often miss the mark. Battlefield 6 debuted in 2025 with a narrative component that felt politically muddled and lacked the grand-scale destruction that is the series’ trademark. Similarly, Black Ops 7 delivered a campaign that felt more like a collection of trends—borrowing heavily from loot shooters and battle royales—rather than a cohesive story. It was a noticeable step back from the focused, high-quality campaign of Black Ops 6.

Fans of the single-player genre have been in a drought for some time, but Bungie’s pivot to extraction gameplay is particularly poignant. This is the studio that defined the console shooter with the original Halo trilogy. Even in the Destiny franchise, which is built on a foundation of metrics and grinds, the most memorable moments are often the linear, mission-based levels that feel like a classic FPS. Seeing Bungie distance itself from its narrative roots feels like the closing chapter of a legendary era.

The benchmarks of the genre—titles like Doom (2016), Wolfenstein: The New Order, and Crysis 3—are not ancient history, yet they feel like artifacts of a dead civilization. However, one potential savior remains on the horizon. There is one franchise capable of satisfying both the corporate demand for live services and the player’s hunger for a blockbuster story. It is the mythical “promised one” of the genre. Titanfall 3, if you’re out there, you are our only hope.

 

Source: Polygon