2 things:
1.) I've never been more addicted to a game.
The amount of time I spend lurking in this subreddit during work, thinking about playing when I'm doing other things... Just wow. It's been said plenty in this community, but bravo to Bungie for cooking up a true masterpiece. This is coming from someone who's never played nor had any interest in extraction shooters. I was annoyed by the extraction mechanics at first (wahhh wahhh 😫 why can't I run around the map blindly, fling open doors, rush people, etc and why do I have to do all this annoying vault management). Needless to say, I get it now, and appreciate how immersive those elements make this game.
I see a lot of complaints about match making times and cheaters, and I'm grateful I haven't experienced any of those issues in 200+ hours. So certainly some things to improve, but I hope Bungie realizes they've created an exceptional game here. And they've brought in AND converted gamers from outside the genre.
2.) I saw someone else post about this. The sponsored kit mode is an interesting style of self selected SBMM.
The overall skill level (regardless of level) across Dire Marsh, Outpost, and Cryo is much higher. That's where the sweats go. I'm one of them, and have zero interest in playing sponsored kit modes most of the time. That being said, I'm thrilled that mode exists to serve the portion of the player base that wants a different experience than me. The more players in the overall Marathon ecosystem = more money/motivation for Bungie to continue investing in this game = new content and improvements for the modes I enjoy.
I've also seen folks point out that this basically turns Marathon into a battle royale. Agreed. I also think that's okay. Healthy player bases (from a monetization/player count perspective) need to be diverse because the gaming market is so competitive. For BRs, extraction games, shooters, etc there are so many individual games vying for the attention of fans of that genre. And they keep coming out every year. Cornering the entire market for a genre is simply unrealistic, but seems like that's what you need to do to justify the astronomical budget of AAA games. I just don't think the extraction market is big enough. It's still niche. Best way to convert fans from other genres is give them something familiar to dip a toe into, and they'll naturally try other modes over time.
The idea that we shouldn't give people a casual option, so they can be fodder in meat grinder lobbies is so short sighted! If they don't have a sponsored kit mode, THEY'RE GOING TO PLAY ANOTHER GAME. They're not going to keep getting kicked in the nuts in Cyro. We can't keep people hostage with limited options, we'll just lose them outright.
Keep cooking, Bungie. I'll be playing until my eyes fall out and you turn the servers off.