Earlier this month, I finally achieved the elusive goal I had set for myself in Bungie’s Marathon. I collected six of the game’s rarest items, allowing me to attempt and then successfully clear the raid-style Compiler boss. I felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders — nearly 185 hours of playtime and I had managed to complete Marathon’s pinnacle activity. A day later, I took my first break from the game.
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Marathon’s second season is a chance for Bungie to turn things around
I had been playing Marathon virtually every day since it launched in March, and I needed to put it down. Treating a Bungie game like it’s a grueling second job is nothing new. Certainly not for me or the many fellow Destiny players that cut their teeth on repetitive level grinds, randomized gear chases, and the difficult raid encounters of Bungie’s prior looter shooter. I have thousands of collective hours in the Destiny franchise. So I knew to expect from Marathon something generally familiar: a game with which I would develop an addictive and complicated relationship, equally defined by love and frustration. But I wasn’t prepared for just how quickly I’d go through the stages of that relationship.
I’ll admit: Characterizing how you play an online video game as if it’s a toxic relationship is probably an indication that the problem is more with me than the game. But my experience is not unique — three months since Marathon’s launch, its player numbers have plummeted, and its abrasive nature, complex risk-and-reward systems, and sometimes excruciating difficulty are starting to grate on diehard players, too.
Marathon puts unreasonably tall walls in front of its players
The magic of Bungie game design is marrying deep systems with unparalleled gunplay and incredible art direction. When all three work in concert, it’s exhilarating, a near-perfect loop of minute-by-minute sensation inside of a long and rewarding arc of self-directed mastery and aspiration. Marathon nailed the gunplay and the art. But its systems, combined with the high-stakes lose-it-all nature of extraction shooters, keep putting unreasonably tall walls in front of its players.
Season 2 is just a few days away, slated for June 2nd. It will involve a complete reset of every player’s progression: All loot will disappear, faction levels will be reset, and players will be asked to start over again from scratch. It’s also a chance for Bungie to reset the narrative around Marathon.
For the company, the stakes could not be higher. Earlier this month, Bungie announced that it would cease active development on Destiny 2, ending a definitive chapter in the studio’s post-Halo history after more than 12 years. Fans are understandably upset, and many are now directing their ire at Marathon, claiming it pulled resources away from continuing Destiny 2 or from kickstarting a full-fledged Destiny 3. Bloomberg has since reported that Bungie is now planning layoffs as part of the decision to end development on Destiny 2.
The studio’s future now depends more than ever on the success of Marathon, a game that has been defined, almost immediately after launch, by its lackluster performance. The longevity of the live-service title has become the central point of anxiety and contention within the Marathon community, as players debate what went wrong, what could fix it, and whether this downward spiral is an existential threat to their favorite new hobby. It has gotten so extreme that the game’s official subreddit has now banned all discussion about player numbers except those made in a single megathread now dedicated to the subject. Now, Destiny’s demise has only exacerbated every conversation about Marathon and its future.
Image: Bungie
As someone who’s gone all in on Marathon, I feel confident I can diagnose at least one of the central issues at play. Marathon is simply too demanding: It requires too much time, too much wasted effort, and far too much failure. It is simply too hard, not just for new players, but for everyone. Yes, the game has a problem bringing in new people, but it also treats those that do stick around with increasing levels of disregard. I want to feel like the time and effort I dedicate to Marathon is being rewarded, and often I am disappointed.
Every online multiplayer game has to contend with the tension between courting and keeping casual players and maintaining a competitive atmosphere and high skill ceiling. Yet I’ve never seen a game accelerate from its honeymoon phase into struggling to survive this quickly. Visit the game’s Reddit community and you’ll see players penning multi-hundred-word personal essays, analyses, and straight-up confessionals about what they think is wrong with Marathon. These players are not the problem. Marathon has serious flaws that inhibit its ability to be enjoyed like a normal video game.
Marathon has serious flaws that inhibit its ability to be enjoyed like a normal video game
In many ways, the extraction genre Marathon occupies is built on failure. You cannot let so-called “gear fear” — the anxiety of losing rare and hard-fought items — control your experience. You’re conditioned to not care about the guns and mods you lose, the time you waste, and the opportunities you squander because of bad luck or another better team or a lobby of high-level streamers. One tiny split-second decision can ultimately ruin an entire run, and that’s just how it goes. What one team does to you, you can always do to another. A free kit in Marathon can also turn into a backpack of purple gear if you play your cards right.
Yet Marathon takes these genre staples several steps too far. It does with the soul-killing brutality of its ranked play (which is also plagued by cheating, including teams collaborating over proximity chat); the incomprehensible uphill battle of its complex and confusing progression system; its stinginess around upgrade materials; and its overreliance on randomness.
Marathon also gets harder the longer you play, thanks to features like level-based matchmaking and by increasingly upping the ante of the risk-reward loop required for high-level activities. Take for instance the vaults needed to access the Compiler boss. Each one requires a key that must be earned from another map, meaning you must fight other teams for it and successfully exfil. You then must take that key into the endgame Cryo Archive map to attempt to unlock a vault, an elaborate puzzle room that broadcasts your location to nearby teams and invites them to try and take you down. You must do this six times, with six different vaults of increasing complexity, to even access the Compiler, which itself requires a rare consumable keycard upon every attempt. This is so grueling that high-skill players are selling Compiler runs on eBay.
The game’s progression and loot system ensure that the less you play, the lower your chances of survival, a problem that compounds as a season drags on because other players quite literally have better stats, better guns, and more funds to purchase items necessary for success, like healing consumables and ammo. One particularly mind-boggling design choice is a season-long grind to unlock the ability to simply purchase purple shields, a feat I have yet to accomplish after more than 200 hours. The more you feel like each run is fruitless — a slot machine pull at best and an inevitable failure at worst — the more likely you are to give up. This shrinks the player base even further and accelerates what some in the community have come to call Marathon’s “skill-based death spiral.”
The more you feel like each run is fruitless — a slot machine pull at best and an inevitable failure at worst — the more likely you are to give up
Bungie, to its credit, has gone to great lengths acknowledging Marathon’s shortcomings. Game director Joe Ziegler penned a refreshingly reflective and self-aware season 1 postmortem. He called the game “overwhelming to learn,” admitted that its overall vibe was too intense, and said it was “hard to find that chill moment in Marathon” that would make it a place you wanted to hang out in, instead of one that singularly rewarded ruthless competition.
The developer has also promised major changes in season 2. In one particularly telling blog post, Bungie said progression in Marathon “should feel more like a staircase where you take one step after another, not like a wall you must climb.” With season 2, Bungie promises to speed up that faction progression, move runner upgrades to a new buildcrafting system called the Cradle, and enact a slew of changes designed to make the game feel more intuitive and rewarding and at the same time less brutal.
Perhaps the most monumental change on the way is the addition of experimental queues that will reduce or remove competitive PvP, in a bid to win over Destiny fans. It’s also an acknowledgment that though Marathon does exist primarily as an extraction shooter, the game may need to move, and do so quickly, beyond the limitations of the genre to achieve something even remotely close to the mass appeal of Destiny. And in a sign of just how serious Bungie is taking these issues, it announced that it would offer the game for free to all players for the first week of season 2, with your progress carrying over if you buy a copy of Marathon.
These are all great starts, and if Bungie is able to make the core loop of Marathon feel quicker, less punishing, and more streamlined, I have no doubt I’ll want to sink back in. Whether these changes will be enough to bring in jaded Destiny fans or players who steadfastly profess that extraction shooters are just not for them is a big question mark. What I do know is that Marathon is a game with an amazing foundation that deserves a fighting chance to become something greater, especially now that the studio has wagered more of its future on the game. The ingredients are all there — Bungie just needs to stop getting in its own way.
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Lorde was performing at the Real Cool Festival in Madrid on Thursday and took some time during her set to speak out against AI glasses. While she didn’t specify any brands in particular, it’s likely she was taking a shot at festival sponsor Ray-Ban, which has collaborated with Meta on a pair of AI smartglasses.
The comments were captured in videos shared to social media. After thanking the crowd for being there and taking part in “something real,” she said that it was increasingly hard to know is and isn’t real, before saying “You don’t know if someone is wearing sunglasses or if they’re wearing those fucked up fucking… Can I just say, for the record, fuck the glasses. Don’t get the glasses. Not sexy.”
The comments come as Meta faces renewed scrutiny over its smart glasses. And, even in the face of that backlash, it is still reportedly planning to launch a pair of “super sensing” glasses that are continuously recording.
According to Stereogum, Lorde was followed on stage by Blackpink’s Jennie, who is a Ray-Ban Meta AI ambassador and has been featured in advertising campaigns on Instagram and in a video screened between sets at Real Cool.
Google general counsel explains AI-powered phishing rise
Halimah Delaine Prado, Google General Counsel, reveals the rise of AI-powered phishing scams originating from China’s ‘outsider enterprise.’ She explains how these criminals use artificial intelligence to create highly convincing fake websites, impersonating trusted brands like T-Mobile to defraud hundreds of thousands of Americans, causing millions in losses. Prado highlights Google’s strategy to combat these evolving threats.
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There are few emails that make your stomach drop faster than one about “new privacy settings.” That usually means a company has moved another data switch, renamed a control or tucked a new choice inside an account menu you rarely visit. Google is now rolling out one of those changes for Search services. The setting is called Search Services History. It controls whether Google saves your activity from Search services when you are signed into your Google Account.
That may sound routine at first. Most of us already know Google can save search history. However, this update goes beyond the old idea of typed searches in a box. Google says Search Services History can include images you upload, files you ask about, voice searches, Search Live recordings, Translate speaking practice audio and other interactions with Search services.
The part that should make you pause is the Save Media setting. When it is turned on, Google can save media from your Search services interactions. That saved media may be used to improve Google’s AI models and technologies. In other words, the random photo you searched with Google Lens or the voice recording you used in a Search feature may help improve Google’s AI.
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Google’s new Search services pop-up tells you media from your searches may now be saved in your history. (Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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What Google’s Search Services History can save
Google says Search Services History may include your searches, results you view, AI Mode responses, voice search recordings, Search Live transcripts, Google Lens images, uploaded files and some information tied to your activity.
Maybe you used Google Lens to identify a plant. Perhaps you uploaded an image to search for a product. You might have used Translate to practice before a trip. Or maybe you asked a question by voice because your hands were full. All of that can feel harmless in the moment. Still, the bigger issue is where that data can go after it is saved.
Google says saved media may help you revisit past visual searches or continue a Search Live conversation. That can be useful. However, Google also says saved media may help develop and improve AI models and technologies. That is the trade-off. You may get more personalized features. Google may get more personal inputs from the tools you already use.
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Why this Google AI setting deserves your attention
This is the kind of privacy change that can slide right past you. The language sounds helpful. The setting lives inside account controls. The rollout happens gradually, so you may not see it right away. That is exactly why you should check.
Google says the new settings are based on your prior choices for Web & App Activity and Search Personalization. If those were on, the new Search Services History setting may also be on. If your prior settings were off, the new one should be off too. That sounds fair enough, but it still puts the work on you.
Also, turning off Save Media does not automatically wipe everything that was already saved. Google says previously saved media may continue to be used to improve its technologies unless you delete it from your account. If saved media has already been selected to train AI models, Google says it is no longer connected to your account and may be kept for up to four years.
That is the part I would not ignore. Once your media moves into that AI-training pipeline, deleting the original activity may not pull it back.
The Search Services History setting appears inside Google’s My Activity page, where you can review what Google saves. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
How to opt out of Google’s Search AI data training setting
You can check this from a phone or computer, but I recommend using a computer if you can. The account settings are easier to read.
- Open a browser and go to myactivity.google.com.
- Make sure you are signed into the account you use for Search, Gmail, YouTube or Android. If you have more than one Google Account, repeat these steps for each one.
- Look for the Search Services History section. If you do not see it yet, Google says the new settings are still rolling out. In that case, your Search history may still be controlled by Web & App Activity.
- If Search Services History is turned on, you should see a Save Media subsetting.
- Uncheck the box next to Save Media if you do not want Google saving media from your Search services interactions.
- If you want to go further, turn Search Services History off. Google says you can choose Turn off or Turn off and delete activity.
- To remove older items, go back to Search Services History and select View and delete saved history. Review what appears there, then delete activity you do not want saved.
- If Search Services History has not reached your account yet, go to My Activity and review Web & App Activity. That may still control some Search services history until the rollout reaches you.
- Google also has a Personalized Recommendations setting for Search services. This can affect how Search services personalize results, feeds and AI responses based on your activity. You can review it in your Google Account under Data & privacy, then Personalization settings.
What happens after you turn Save Media off
Turning off Save Media stops Google from saving media from future Search services interactions as part of Search Services History. However, it does not shut down every kind of Search history. Text-based activity, transcripts and some AI responses may still be saved if Search Services History remains on.
Also, Google says media from your future interactions can still be used to respond to you and help keep services safe. The key difference is that future media should not be used to train Google’s generative AI models unless you provide feedback. That is a meaningful distinction, but it isn’t the same as using Google with no data collection at all.
You should also know that Save Media does not control everything across Google. It does not cover separate activity settings for Gemini Apps, YouTube, NotebookLM or Google Voice. Those services have their own controls.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Google’s new Search Services History setting is worth checking now, especially if you use Lens, voice search, Translate or AI Mode. The Save Media box is the one I would look for first. If you do not want your images, files, audio or video saved for future AI improvement, turn it off. Then go one step further and review old activity. Turning off a setting usually protects future data, but past items may still sit in your account unless you delete them. Finally, repeat the process for every Google Account you use. Many of us have a personal account, a work account or an old account still signed in somewhere.
The Save Media checkbox is the key setting to turn off if you do not want images, files, audio and video saved for AI training. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Would you keep using Google Lens the same way if you knew your image searches could help train AI for years? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Apple’s self-driving car program never really got off the ground, but it may have been what made the company’s chips the powerful AI performers they are. Early in the development of the self-driving platform, Apple realized that it would need powerful on-device AI processing. While the car processor was never finished, as Mark Gurman details in his latest Power On newsletter, it did lead to the development of the Neural Engine, the backbone of Apple’s on-device AI processing.
The Neural Engine made its debut with the iPhone X and the A11 Bionic. In those early days, it was primarily used for computer vision, powering FaceID, Animoji, and augmented reality features. But by laying the groundwork for on-device AI processing, Apple established itself as an early leader by bringing the Neural Engine to desktops with the M-series chips. While Apple’s AI software efforts have lagged behind the rest of the industry, its hardware has been impressive. It’s also what has allowed Apple to tout its privacy features, since less data is sent to the cloud.
Apple is making its AI hardware a cornerstone of its strategy going forward. According to Gurman, the company is skipping the Pro, Max, and Ultra versions of its upcoming M6 chip. Instead, it’s accelerating development of the M7, which should arrive in the first half of 2027 with significant Neural Engine upgrades. The M7 Ultra is expected to be the basis for a new server product from Apple as well, with support for up to 1.5TB of RAM.
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