Bungie’s Marathon Reviewed

PCMag gave Bungie’s Marathon a 4.5-out-of-5 “Outstanding” rating and an Editors’ Choice, calling the shooter one of 2026’s best games. (au.pcmag.com) The review describes Marathon as a three-player extraction shooter set on Tau Ceti IV, where players loot, fight computer-controlled enemies and rival squads, and must escape alive or lose everything they carried. PCMag listed a $39.99 price and said it reviewed the game on PlayStation 5 Pro; Bungie says Marathon launched March 5, 2026 on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. (me.pcmag.com) (press.bungie.com) PCMag’s praise centered on Bungie’s gunplay, sound design, music, and neon-heavy art direction, while its main warning was difficulty: the outlet called the onboarding “brutal” and said solo play is less engaging than team matches. IGN and GameSpot also praised the shooting and tension, but both reviews noted punishing losses and a steep learning curve. (me.pcmag.com) (ign.com) (gamespot.com) That matters because Marathon is Bungie’s first new non-Destiny release in more than a decade, and it revives a name the studio first used for a 1994 Macintosh shooter. Bungie announced the reboot in 2023, pitched it as a team-based extraction game with full cross-play and cross-save, and then moved to a March 2026 launch after showing gameplay and running tests. (me.pcmag.com) (press.bungie.com) (bungie.net) An extraction shooter is a multiplayer format built around risk: you enter a map with gear, gather better equipment and mission items, then try to reach an exit before other players or artificial-intelligence enemies kill you. Marathon uses that structure in squads of three, which helps explain why reviewers keep pairing praise for its firefights with warnings that it can be unforgiving for new players. (me.pcmag.com) (ign.com) The early reaction has not been uniformly glowing. Polygon called Marathon “divisive,” and The Outerhaven said strong gunplay is held back by progression and balance problems, while Forbes wrote that high critic scores are arriving alongside debate over player counts and whether the game is too hardcore for a wider audience. (polygon.com) (theouterhaven.net) (forbes.com) Bungie has also been updating the game quickly since launch. Its Marathon news feed shows patches on March 24, March 31, and April 7, 2026, and PC Gamer reported recent balance changes to weapons and class abilities as Bungie responded to player feedback. (bungie.net) (pcgamer.com) The game also arrived after a plagiarism dispute over art used in Marathon’s alpha period. Bungie acknowledged last year that unauthorized artist work had appeared in the game, and Polygon reported in March 2026 that the credited artist, Antireal, is now listed in the full release. (eurogamer.net) (polygon.com) So the review story is not just that PCMag liked Marathon. It is that Bungie shipped a $39.99 extraction shooter on March 5, won top-tier praise for its combat and style, and is still asking players to accept a game built around friction, loss, and repeated failure. (me.pcmag.com) (press.bungie.com)