Following the Marathon Server Slam, feedback is flowing wide and free across the internet. One of the more prominent areas of discussion is focused on the game’s readability: how easy it is to digest information you’re given on one of its various menus. Or, as its been so succinctly dubbed by some: ‘Fontslop’.
First coined by content creator Kelski, a tweet by the influencer showed the contracts page for Cyberachme. They wrote: “Marathon gotta be the first ever fontslop game. There’s like 20 different combinations of fonts, boldness levels, sizes, spacing, all caps vs regular caps, all on one menu page. Just an absolute eye sore. They really need to pull back on the whole ‘abstract’ thing for the UI.”
They were not alone in such complaints, with various other players who jumped into the Server Slam over the weekend struggling to navigate various menus due to bold design decisions in Marathon. Another content creator you may have heard of, Ninja, described Marathon as having: “hands down one of the most complex menus I’ve ever seen in my life.”
There are voices countering this perspective though, from those who love the aesthetic leaps taken with Marathon throughout its pre-game menus. As one Podawful puts it: “gamers are such goobrained slophogs they see the only attempt at something good looking in video games in the past 20 years and their mindworms just give up.”
This whole debate does actually go somewhere, unlike many. Marathon’s own user interface designer Elliot Gray took to social media to share his perspective on the matter. But not before adding ‘fontslop’ merchant to his bio.
“All jokes aside there’s plenty of work we can and will do as a team to respond to player feedback about inventory management, navigation, density of info, etc,” Gray wrote to X. “but don’t think for a second that we’re gonna remove the SAUCE from the UI. #fontsloptakeover.”
What are your thoughts on the visual complexity of Marathon’s menus? If you’ve not had a chance to play the game yourself, Eurogamer wrote a preview following the Server Slam test you can read to get a glimpse at what Bungie’s putting out there later this week.
