Marathon's aura-farming NPCs show just how bland and lifeless Arc Raiders' AI-voiced characters really are

Marathon’s aura-farming NPCs show just how bland and lifeless Arc Raiders’ AI-voiced characters really are | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these FPS Marathon UI designer declares himself the ‘fontslop merchant’ and promises Bungie will never ‘remove the SAUCE from the UI’ FPS The Marathon server slam consumed my weekend: 21 hours later, I’ve gone from ‘meh’ to believer FPS If you’re hoping to make friends in Marathon like you can in Arc Raiders, expect a knife in the back FPS Is Marathon’s time-to-kill too fast, or am I too Arc Raiders-pilled? FPS Marathon Server Slam update: Bungie says if you’re not getting enough PvP action, maybe you’re just not looking for fights in the right places FPS Marathon day one check-in: Thief impressions, broken Deluxe Edition bonuses, and so many Assassins FPS Hours before its open preview weekend, Marathon is suddenly very close to the top of Steam’s top sellers list FPS If you love Marathon’s vectorheart style but not its PvP, get your aesthetic fix from the gorgeously overstimulating demo for this time trial FPS instead Third Person Shooter Arc Raiders’ Shrouded Sky added lots of cool new toys, but my favourite part is the new quality-of-life features that have flown under the radar FPS ‘An absolute eyesore’: Marathon’s biggest issue seems to be its poor UI design that’s confusing players, ‘I have no idea where I’m at, what I’m looking at’ FPS Players were responsible for over 55% of kills during Marathon’s Server Slam, I guess to protect their precious 384,866 drinkable cheeseburgers and 145,822 bottles of alien milk FPS Best Marathon characters tier list: All Runner Shell classes explained FPS You can lessen Marathon’s faction rep grind by doing more than just contracts Third Person Shooter The latest Arc Raiders patch makes Rocketeers way more important Third Person Shooter Arc Raiders’ latest patch has made Rocketeers deadlier, and you can guess how happy it’s made players: ‘The problem with rocketeers was their abundance of mercy’ PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Resident EvilArc RaidersBest PC gearGame Quizzes Games FPS Marathon Marathon’s aura-farming NPCs show just how bland and lifeless Arc Raiders’ AI-voiced characters really are Features By Rory Norris published 6 March 2026 Style and substance. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Arc Raiders is undeniably a one-of-a-kind extraction shooter, finally bringing the niche, hardcore genre to the masses. And while its retro-futuristic aesthetic, reminiscent of Fallout, is a joy to wage war pr make life-long friends in, the same can’t be said for its cast of quest givers.Try to think of any characteristic or personality trait to describe Shani. Impossible. Celeste? Nope. Apollo is by far the coolest, but that’s just because he’s a robot wearing aviators. Arc Raiders characters are puppets pretending to be human, a problem only worsened by the deadpan line delivery of their text-to-speech, AI-powered voices. Arc Raiders’ Shani. (Image credit: Embark)But it’s an extraction shooter, so expectations were and still are low regarding story and characters. Yet, when you hop over to Marathon, and you see how overkill Bungie’s been, it’s hard not to feel let down even more by Embark’s approach. You may like Marathon’s creative director says Bungie ‘wanted to push the boundaries of what an extraction shooter can do with its story’ as it goes head to head with Arc Raiders’ evolving world Is Marathon’s time-to-kill too fast, or am I too Arc Raiders-pilled? Arc Raider’s defining feature, according to Embark’s CEO, is all the odd player interactions: ‘We did not expect people to take on roles of Defender of the Swamp’ Like Arc Raiders, Marathon’s faction reps are effectively just a user interface to offer quests and hand out loot. They’re transactional—you’re there because you need to do something. But Bungie understands that it doesn’t mean they need to be boring. Arachne | Marathon Faction Intro – YouTube Watch On Each one has a unique, incredibly stylised intro cinematic that explains the faction’s reasoning for being involved in the narrative unfolding on Tau Ceti. Traxus built a lot of the infrastructure of the original expedition to the planet and is now attempting to claw back any