So what is Marathon? Marathon is a game that was developed and published by Bungie. A continuation of sorts from their late 90s IP, it takes the Extraction Shooter approach, while you explore the long-abandoned colony of New Cascadia on the planet of Tau Ceti IV. While on this planet, you take control of a Runner, an artificial shell housing your consciousness, and are thrust into one of four different maps currently available on the planet, where you search for loot like health packs, consumable buffs, and weapons. At the same time, the map is littered with other players looking for the same, and it essentially turns into a "kill or be killed" battleground similar to competitors like Escape from Tarkov. The loop itself is satisfying, rewarding players who are resourceful and cunning.

Despite its positives, I have personally found a few things that can be pretty jarring. First is the contract system. With this system, players are given tasks to complete by the many factions while exploring each locale. Difficulty increases with each completion, which is to be expected. That said, it is also not the most consistent system, as some contracts require tasks to be done in a single run, while others can be done over the course of several. This makes for an inconsistent difficulty that is unnecessarily tedious, and can potentially leave you feeling "stuck" in a contract for a prolonged amount of time.

Another issue I have found is with the way your Vault works. In game, the Vault is your storage space where all your equipment and consumables are stored. The issue stems from initial size, as the expectation is for you to gather as much loot as possible, yet the starting amount of Vault space makes it difficult to keep everything you have gathered. Even with the most recent changes to how items stack in your Vault, Vault space being as limited as it is when you first start playing feels unnecessarily restrictive. To make it worse, upgrades to Vault space feel too spread out between faction levels, making people who prefer keeping a larger arsenal have to choose what to keep, which feels unsatisfying.

While the gameplay is well designed and fun to interact with,  getting to release was not without some bumps in the road. Before development was completed, issues began cropping up surrounding art theft . In May 2025, there were a number of articles released discussing Bungie's use of art strikingly similar to art originally made by AntiReal (@4nt1r34l on the site formerly known as Twitter) in Marathon's early builds (see an example of one such article, from Paul Tassi at Forbes, here). At the time, AntiReal expressed issues with similarities between their own art and in-game assets (see below):

Despite all that, the game that has been released has been nothing if not impressive. Gameplay is what we have come to expect with Bungie titles: solid movement mechanics, satisfying gunplay, and a rich lore heavy world for people to experience.

This sparked a lot of discussion surrounding the game's quality, as this wasn't the first time Bungie had faced similar allegations. Most notably, a lawsuit was settled in November 2025 for plagiarizing a storyline that was then used as the first story focused campaign in Destiny 2 (initial suit was filed in October 2024, as reported in this Gamespost article, and the settlement report in this Gamesindustry.Biz article). This, along with the apparent winding down of Destiny 2's PvP content, combined with the lack of quality narrative content that players were accustomed to, has left the community with a lot more skepticism about the studio's future direction.

Ultimately, despite the controversies that have plagued the studio, Bungie has managed to deliver an experience that both feels similar to current competition like Tarkov and ARC Raiders, while giving a unique and refreshing spin through their shell system and heavy focus on narrative. Marathon stands as a solid foundation from which Bungie can build something special. There is so much on the horizon, with their latest roadmap promising plenty of content worth getting excited about. And while the art and plagiarism allegations had given them some difficulty, it clearly didn't dampen their creativity when building this world. I look forward to the next update, as I myself will complete "one more run".

Your Lie in April begins with an scene that will always stand out to me: Kousei Arima, sitting at a piano in front of hundreds of people — and he is just frozen.

Not from stage fright. Not from forgetting the notes. He freezes because he literally cannot hear himself play. The sound disappears. And in that silence, all he can hear is his mother's voice telling him he's worthless.

That scene shouldn't work as well as it does. A boy who can't hear his own piano playing sounds like magical realism dressed up as drama. But the reason it lands — the reason this entire show lands — is that the music is just set dressing.

The piano, the competitions, the sheet music — they're just the shape grief decided to take.

What this show is actually about, is what happens when grief takes something from you so completely that you don't know who you are without it.

Kousei grew up being called the Human Metronome - a nickname that was technically intended to compliment, yet lands more like an insult. Technically flawless, emotionally absent, the kind of player who made judges nod and audiences feel nothing.

His mother, Saki, made him that way. She was sick, and afraid for Kousei's future after she was gone. As a result, she trained him the best way she knew how - with an iron discipline and almost no mercy. He obeyed, because he loved her, and because love at that age doesn't leave much room for conditions.

When she died, he expected grief. What he didn't expect was silence.

In this respect, the show is smart about how trauma works. It doesn't give Kousei a clean psychological explanation for why he can't hear himself play. It just shows you the result — a boy standing at the instrument that defined his entire childhood, completely cut off from it. His body made a decision his mind never consciously agreed to.

That's what real grief often looks like. Not dramatic collapse. Just a quiet, bewildering absence where something used to be.

Then Kaori Miyazono shows up — and she is, deliberately, everything Kousei is not.

She plays like the sheet music is more of a suggestion than a rulebook. She's loud, chaotic, physically expressive, even occasionally out of tune. A competition judge would, and funnily enough DOES, tear her apart. But the audience can't look away from her, because she's playing like it means something.

And this is where the show makes its central argument: technical perfection, divorced from feeling, is just noise. What makes music — what makes any art — matter is the human presence trying to reach you through it.

Kaori doesn't rehabilitate Kousei gently. She drags him back into the world by sheer force of personality. She's pushy, demanding, and admittedly not particularly fair about it. Yet the show is honest that this is sometimes what a person in that kind of withdrawal actually needs — not patience, but interruption.

Here's where the series gets philosophically interesting.

Kaori knows she's dying. We figure this out gradually. She, however, has known from the very beginning. But rather than retreating from life, she chooses the opposite — she runs head first into it. Every moment is played at full volume because she is keenly aware that the curtain is coming down.

This is a very specific Japanese aesthetic idea called mono no aware — roughly, the bittersweet beauty of impermanence. This is embodied in the cherry blossoms that appear throughout the show — they aren't just pretty background art. They're the whole thesis. They bloom explosively, last about two weeks, and then they're gone. And somehow their brevity is part of what makes them beautiful.

Kaori is a cherry blossom. The show knows this. She knows this. And the tragedy isn't that she's dying — it's that she is more alive than almost anyone around her, and she won't get to stay.

Your Lie in April is often called a romance, and it is — but it's a strange and melancholy one, and it's worth being precise about what the show wants to say about love.

Kaori doesn't heal Kousei. Not really, anyway. His trauma predates her and will outlast her. Instead, what she does is give him a reason to walk back toward the thing he abandoned — not because the pain has been lifted from his shoulders, but because now there's someone on the other side of it worth reaching.

That's a much more honest take on what love can and can't do. It doesn't erase wounds. It doesn't fix people. What it can do is make the distance between you and your own life feel worth crossing.

And then there's Tsubaki — who has loved Kousei quietly, in the background, for years. Her arc is the show's most overlooked tragedy. She realizes what she feels too late, or at least too slowly, and the show doesn't punish her for it, but it doesn't save her from it either. Not all love gets to be the story. Some of it just aches, left incomplete.

Now, if you haven't seen the finale, close this video now, or pause here and feel free to watch it yourself. The rest of this video will only makes sense if you know what's in Kaori's letter.

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At the end of the series, there is one more moment that truly stands out. After Kaori's funeral, when her parents thank Kousei for his presence, they hand him a letter from Kaori. And in that letter, she finally reveals the titular Lie in April — that the girl who claimed to like Watari was in fact, in love with Kousei. 

She loved him. Not Watari — Kousei. She loved him since she was a little girl, watching him play on stage. Watari was just the excuse to get close. And she never told him the truth. All because she was afraid — afraid that naming it would somehow make the loss heavier for both of them.

So the lie in April isn't really a betrayal. It's a form of protection. Or perhaps, it's a form of cowardice. The show doesn't entirely let her off the hook, and honestly, it shouldn't.

But what it does — and this is the devastating part — is reframe the entire narrative. Every scene between them now plays wholly and completely differently. Her urgency, her demands, her constant pushing — it all had a second layer you couldn't see. She wasn't just a free spirit dragging a broken boy back to life. She was a girl in love, running out of time, trying to leave something behind that would outlast her.

And it worked.

Your Lie in April ends in April. Kousei plays his final performance while Kaori, we understand, is dying in surgery. He plays as a message for her. He plays knowing she may never hear it.

And then the cherry blossoms fall.

What this show asks, underneath all of it, is something genuinely uncomfortable: what would it take to make you fully present in your own life? What would it take to play at full volume — knowing it ends, knowing the notes disappear, knowing the audience will eventually empty out?

Kaori's answer was: exactly this. Exactly now.

That's the lie she told. That's the life she lived. And somehow, even from the other side of a story, it's hard not to want to be a little more like her.

The Patent in question was originally approved in September of last year, and after two months, the Director of the Office John A Squires ordered that the patent be re-examined. An action like this — an unprompted request for patent re-examination — hasn't been seen since 2012.

According to an article from Games Fray, this re-examination has lead USPTO to reject all 26 of Nintendo's claims, effectively revoking the patent in its entirety. While looking at the provided paperwork, they claimed 35 USC § 103, which reads as follows: 

A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.

US Patent Law, 35 USC § 103

Note that this rejection isn't permanent and can be responded to within 60 days of submission. This is what Nintendo is expected to do, and can even be taken up with Federal Courts if both parties cannot come to an agreement.

It's also important to recognize that this patent was filed around the same time as Nintendo's suit against Palworld's developer Pocketpair. It was this exact patent that Nintendo used as the basis of their patent violation claims when the lawsuit first began. Now however, if after potential litigation with the US Government falls flat, they may struggle to have a case for patent infringement. That case is ongoing, so only time will tell what will happen moving forward.

OK, let's back up a bit. I was introduced to Miyazaki's games with later entries, as I started with Dark Souls 3. Over time, I came to appreciate that the main Souls franchise made me bash my head into a wall fairly regularly: it was refreshing to be a "hero" whose initial purpose is unknown with a world to explore to make their own. 

This trend had been masterfully crafted since Miyazaki's initial implementation of the modern Souls-like formula with Demon's Souls, a PS3 exclusive that was lauded for it's brutal difficulty but extremely immersive and rewarding world.

When Elden Ring was first announced in 2019, I was drawn in by it's high fantasy setting and combat that looked familiar, but and somehow both lighter and heavier. On top of that, knowing that the legendary George R.R. Martin was involved in the world building and story telling, and I was already hype, ready to experience it.

When I first got to play the game, it felt familiar, the entry into the world being fairly standard for a Souls-like journey: make your character, be brought through a tutorial dungeon of sorts, face a boss that you can either beat or die to. No matter the result of that fight, you are then thrust into the world that you will then be exploring. And typically, this would then lead into a very bleak, gothic setting.

What I didn't expect, however, was the golden picturesque world of The Lands Between. The moment I was free of the starting cave/dungeon, I let my hands of the keyboard, and admired it all. The golden fields that spanned the map. The ruins far ahead of me, enemies roaming in between. And the greatest sight of all, a gigantic glowing tree I later found out was called the Erdtree.

I was left sitting in my chair, breath taken away by the beauty of the world Miyazaki and Martin had crafted. A world that, while beautiful, also felt very mysterious in it's own right. It took me a few minutes to gather myself, and to venture forth into the world.

The game then continued to do so. With every new biome, I stopped for a minute or two, to stare at each and every environment. From the Gatefront Ruins, their splendor holding despite it's mangled state, to the majesty of the Raya Lucaria Academy, to even the unwelcoming likes of the Lake of Rot. All these locations, and plenty more, gave me pause, as I had to take them in with all their splendor. 

When all was said and done, Elden Ring was my first true experience with being left breathless. Each encounter, each biome brought a host of experiences, and gave me insight into the mind of Miyazaki. It is an experience I don't think I will ever really truly forget. Now, if you need me, I will continue to explore the Lands Between, as there is always something to explore.

The one thing that I think solidifies this replayability, it's choice. Contrary to what people may have said, Cyberpunk has always had a broad amount of choice; from things like when to take what jobs/gigs, to how to approach completing each task, to the builds your V decides to go with, and everything in between. There is plenty of freedom to be had, much of it leading to very interesting consequences.

Let's look at one such example. In the Phantom Liberty Expansion of the game, the main storyline revolves around a character named Songbird. Over the course of the chain of quests, you learn that Songbird is much like or V: someone that the people in power see as a tool more than human, and that they don't really have much time left. At the mid point of this sequence, you're given a choice: either you betray the party holding Songbird back, or you betray Songbird herself. This is met at a juncture where you are given minimal time to react, and once that choice is made, you either end the quest line quick but lock yourself out of potentially more interactions with the newly introduced cast, or have the opportunity to learn more about both parties and potentially save Songbird from her fate. Choices like these are scattered all throughout Night City, with each one giving you potential decision whiplash, and leaving you feeling either extremely positive or extremely empty. 

This also just underpins the amount of time you can spend just roaming the city streets. Since they implemented an auto-drive system for getting around the city,  I often find myself loading the game just so I can roam with that function enabled, leisurely driving around to spot another point of interest. And sometimes, you might even find another unique fixer gig to tackle.

Honestly, whatever you do in the game, you'll end up feeling like you need to come back and explore more. Maybe look through different neighborhoods, find the next scav fight with the NCPD. Maybe visit a different Ripperdoc to the one you usually haunt, see what they carry. Or maybe try gigs out differently, maybe with Mantis Blades instead of Gorilla Arms. Whatever the case, the experience always calls back to you; just hop back in choom, because you may just surprise yourself on how you approach the City next.