Marathon's mixed launch
Bungie’s new extraction shooter Marathon has sold an estimated 1.2M copies with nearly 70% on Steam, drawing praise for audio design and tight gunplay but criticism for a 'nightmarishly bad UI' that may be limiting mainstream traction. (gamesradar.com) (gameinformer.com)
Alinea Analytics’ head of market analysis, Rhys Elliott, published the platform breakdown and framed Marathon’s opening as “not exactly made the splash” for Sony and Bungie in a public post. (gamesradar.com) The same Alinea data set attached a gross‑revenue estimate of roughly $55 million to Marathon’s launch window and reported daily active user figures around 345,000 (with weekend averages near 380,000). (ign.com) Steam tracking sites recorded Marathon’s all‑time concurrent peak at 88,337 players on March 6, 2026, while 24‑hour peaks since launch have hovered roughly in the 40k–50k range and recent live counts are in the low‑to‑mid 30ks on PC. (steamdb.info) Bungie moved quickly on monetization backlash, increasing the $10 LUX bundle from 1,100 to 1,120 and announcing a post‑launch patch that includes accessibility and balance tweaks after player complaints. (eurogamer.net) Bungie also activated Marathon’s first raid‑style endgame zone, Cryo Archive, on March 20 as a weekends‑only map that requires season level 25, all faction unlocks, and a minimum 5,000‑credit loadout to queue. (bungie.net)
