In an archetypical Bungie move, one of those scrolling tweets that compel a second reading just dropped. You know the sort where you’re thinking: wait, did they really just say THAT? Expecting little from the casual throwaway comment-a warm dead body is incomparable. 🐈. Well, that was a Marathon Gameplay Reveal Showcase announcement for April 12, and that’s all it took-the Internet blinked.
First off, “That wording.” Warm dead body with a cat emoji? Either this is the strangest metaphor referring to a pet cat or a seriously dark sci-fi vibe for the Marathon reboot. Naturally, the wording gives them a wide berth to do some marketing that is just weird enough to make sense. The tweet, of course, has garnered some reactions on varied forums, with players picking apart each word like it’s a lore tab in Destiny.
Anyway-10 AM PT, Saturday, April 12-it’s happening, and the hype is real. This is our first real look at gameplay outside of the announcement for Bungie’s reinvention of the ’90s classic into a PvP-focused extraction shooter.
Could it suggest a darker tone for the game-maybe in contrast with recovery mechanics? Or are we being led around by the nose by Bungie-which would certainly not be the first time they have done that?!
The yonder sky looks wild-our actual intel on the original Marathon sputtered some decades ago! An exclusive Mac shooter that paved the way for Halo-like a rebooted monster. You know extraction shooters: frantic, short bursts of mayhem with more focus on loot and escape scenarios-Hunt: Showdown plus Bungie gunplay awesomeness.
That ‘warm dead body’ line could give either a backhanded hint to loot mechanics within the game or a good-natured way of eyeballing death as a mechanic.
How about that kitty emoji? Cat references were not part of the original Marathon trilogy, so either it’s a ruse, or Bungie might indeed tuck in another layer of weird-ness. Manic fans are out already going into theorizing AI constructs or some related species, of course. The casuals meanwhile are like, “yo why’s this tweet so creepy?”
No response to this tweet yet.(I guess could be the case for all the busy recording personal-space for meme potential.) Forums, on the contrary, are getting roasted.
Some believe that it’s hinting at a possible loot system that carries corpses of dead players to be accessible. Others think it’s a funny-troll and remember Bungie tweeting: “guardians make their own fate right before Vault of glass?”
Bungie has a knack for placing a funny finger into places; by the time we couple this with last year’s tag-the-so-cryptic “Your journey begins in the lost city of Old Chicago,” Marathon’s world is being molded by the puzzle-box marketing that drove Destiny’s lore community into such a ridiculous frenzy.
One really cannot wait for April 12, at least to find out whether harmful corpse style is a posh theme in sci-fi horror, or if the devs are simply being loony.
Mark your calendars, get your caffeine booster, and mentally prepare for whatever weird rabbit hole the showcase vomits into existence. And if you see a bunch of people analyzing cat emojis like it’s the Zodiac Killer cipher? Well, that’s just your regular work of Bungie fandom.
