Bungie's extraction shooter Marathon is a good but extremely niche game, so while its review scores are high, the player base is not as large as the studio nor its owner PlayStation was hoping for.I like Marathon, but I'm worried for its future. I said as much yesterday. But after reading a new, lengthy blog post by game director Joe Ziegler today, I'm feeling a bit better about where things may be heading.Image via BungieZiegler was very open with how the game has started out and what lessons Bungie has learned so far, along with how the team is going to iterate changes while "embarking on a multi-season journey built around growing from the seed of this strong community."This means making the game "less grindy, more rewarding," improving the UI/UX and matchmaking, "smoothing out onboarding" for new players, and more. And that's without getting into actual content like maps and playable characters. But first, Ziegler says Bungie has realized that the game is overwhelming to learn, first and foremost, and that needs to change."Marathon for new players can be an overwhelming experience," Ziegler said. "After a short tutorial, you're often thrown into the fire to learn a lot of concepts, navigate a lot of screens, filter through a ton of loot, and build muscle memory with a lot of mechanics fairly quickly in a hostile environment where other players can bring you down and take your stuff."In the immediate future, season two of Marathon will add a night time version of the Dire Marsh map, the new Sentinel Runner Shell, weapons, and other improvements. But Ziegler teased even more what to expect beyond season two, including:Season 3: "A lot of revisions to our early experience, including big updates to Perimeter, alongside a new Runner shell, and additional (no spoilers) content."Season 4: "We're focusing on building more depth into the existing extraction loop."Season 5: "We're looking at bringing the whole ecosystem of (PV(P)VE) play together and evolving our weird sci-fi world in new ways."Image via Bungie"For those of you who have joined us on this journey, we want to thank you," Ziegler said in closing. "Your feedback, your endless support, and your passion have become the echoing chant that fuels us to conjure new ideas, create new solutions to problems, and have fun doing it. We're excited for you to join us as we grow this game around you and the community you've created. For those of you who may be on the fence about whether or not we're the right game for you: thank you as well. We're excited to welcome you when you're ready to take the dive so keep checking back in with us as we walk this journey and if you get the itch, we'll be more than happy to have you."The full-length, massive post is worth reading if you're into the game or interested in maybe picking it up after some updates, so check it out on the Bungie website ahead of Marathon's season two coming in a few weeks on June 2.The post Marathon director details how Bungie plans on growing the game’s ‘strong core community,’ and I like what they’re saying appeared first on Destructoid.