Whereas Marathon might be a PvEvP multiplayer shooter that focuses on gamers taking over AI-controlled NPCs in addition to different gamers throughout giant ranges, recreation director Joe Ziegler has revealed why Bungie made the choice to not embrace proximity chat as one in every of its communication options.
Talking to PCGamer, Ziegler revealed that the first cause for skipping the function for Marathon was due to the potential toxicity amongst gamers it causes. For context, proximity chat in a recreation signifies that, relying on the place a participant is within the recreation’s world, they could or might not be capable of hear and talk with different gamers by voice. Whereas this affords loads of probabilities for emergent storytelling by participant interactions, it additionally has the draw back of not permitting gamers to filter out whose voice they will or can not hear.
“In relation to [proximity chat], I don’t assume we’re in opposition to the expertise of it, to be truthful,” mentioned Ziegler. “I feel the problem is how to ensure we’re making a protected setting for gamers within that area.”
“I don’t assume anybody actually has an excellent answer to that simply but. As a result of we’re so devoted to creating positive that we’re making a protected area the place we don’t have gamers simply flaming one another or doing horrible issues to 1 one other, I feel we’re not able to put money into prox chat till we’ve got an answer.”
Extraction shooters particularly, together with different adjoining genres like battle royales, have a tendency to profit fairly a bit from proximity chat as a function. Owing to the style’s emphasis on scavenging for sources and attempting 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 example.
“I feel that’s the place we stand proper now,” Ziegler mentioned. “Like, if it was magical and we may by some means provide you with that answer, I feel we completely would do it. However proper now, it’s a problem that many firms try to determine.”
In the end, it seems to be like Bungie will take participant suggestions into consideration in relation to the potential for proximity chat to be added to Marathon. As Ziegler himself defined, toxicity gamers is certainly an actual factor that usually tends to happen in aggressive video games, and as soon as an answer to that is discovered, we would see extra video games with proximity chat down the road.
In one other interview, Ziegler additionally spoke about how Bungie needs to supply an extraction shooter expertise by Marathon that additionally permits gamers to get into the style’s “survival storytelling” elements with out having to cope with the jank and “cruft” that video games within the style are identified for.
Marathon is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Sequence X/S, and might be popping out on September 23. Over the weekend, Bungie formally revealed what gameplay within the upcoming title will seem like. At launch, gamers will be capable of play by 3 maps, with 6 distinct Runners to select from.
