Here's your chance to get Marathon for just $1 and score one of my favorite FPS games in recent years for a tiny price

Marathon nails the two things every solid extraction shooter needs: the vibes, which remain top-notch no matter how many times you meet an early fate, and the gunplay, which feels as intense on your first shot as it does on your millionth. Drenched in a sci-fi atmosphere befitting of the Destiny and Halo creators, Bungie's pseudo-reboot is one of the best FPS games available right now, and a lucky few will get it for just $1 / £1.

Marathon isn't a very casual-friendly game, and I'm the first to admit that it can be challenging. Each run sees you take a Shell to the various maps of Tau Ceti IV as you complete quests for various factions and, hopefully, leave with more loot than you came in with - it's an extraction game, of course, but that also means you need to extract with the loot. If you die in the middle of your run, whether that's because of another Runner or the various UESC foes roaming the areas, you'll lose all your hard-earned gear - including the ones you brought in the first place.

However, while death - in most cases - is a frustrating setback, it's also part of the learning experience. Every death is simply part of the gameplay loop. You'll realise that sometimes it's just because the other player was much more skilled, but other times it's because you didn't ration your ammo better, or forgot to factor in your abilities' cooldown timers. You'll soon identify your common mistakes and avoid them on future runs.

Marathon is hard, but it's also about putting in the effort to learn how to play it well. Don't treat it like Call of Duty or Overwatch 2, guns blazing and coming back to life with minimal consequence, but an exploration-style experience with PvP and PvE elements that can haunt you if you're not careful. Quick decisions are required, of course, but most of the time it's about engaging when you feel like you can come out alive, rather than getting into a gunfight for the sake of it.

If you're nervous about buying Marathon, that's a fair opinion. However, some lucky buyers could get it for just $1 / £1 with the Fanatical Mystery Egg Bundle. Each 'egg' is a Steam key, and for just $1 / £1 each, you'll likely get a random indie game or an older triple-A gem, but there's a small chance of scoring a newly released game, including Marathon. Other possible prizes include:

• Reanimal
• Menace
• Death Stranding 2: On The Beach
• Nioh 3

Of course, it's a completely random lucky dip, but imagine how exciting it would feel to score a brand new title for just a dollar. You'll still come away as a winner, adding some more to your ever-growing Steam library, so there's no loss. For a greater chance, you can always get 30 eggs for $19.79 / £19.79, making them less than $1 / £1 per egg.

So, hopefully I'll see you in Tau Ceti IV in the coming days. Please don't steal my loot, though. I worked hard on getting it all, and I don't want to do it all again.