A free playtest for Bungie’s Marathon has launched to strong numbers across Steam and Twitch, as the developer vows to fix ‘loose ends’ before launch.
The development of Bungie’s Marathon has been tumultuous to say the least, between delays, stolen art controversies, and studio layoffs, but that hasn’t deterred people from giving it a shot.
The extraction shooter, from the studio behind Destiny and Halo, launched a Server Slam playtest on Thursday (February 26) across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. While the game will cost £34.99 when it launches on March 5, this test is free for everyone until Monday March 2 at 6pm GMT.
The success of any live service title is dependent on its ability to retain players beyond its early honeymoon period, but the early signs for Marathon are positive, based on interest in the Server Slam.
The most positive indicator is the position of Marathon on Steam’s top sellers list in the US. As of February 27, the shooter is the third highest selling game on Valve’s storefront, behind only Resident Evil Requiem and Counter-Strike 2 (and so ahead of Arc Raiders).
Most notably, it’s jumped up 58 places over the past week, so clearly people are putting in pre-orders amid the Server Slam. It’s a slightly different picture if you switch to the UK top sellers on Steam, with Marathon in seventh, but it’s still a decent position.
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Over on Twitch, it’s positive too. At the time of writing, Marathon has over 33K viewers, which is higher than Arc Raiders (26.4K), Fortnite (19.7K), and Minecraft (24.4K). So, it’s only below Overwatch, League Of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Valorant.
As they are both extraction shooters, Marathon’s success is inevitably going to be measured against Arc Raiders. As per SteamDB, Marathon’s concurrent peak player count is 143,621, which is quite far below Arc Raiders’ peak at 481,966 players.
Even if you compare them on their 24-hour peak numbers, Arc Raiders is still higher at 183,197, while Marathon sits at 143,621. It’s important to reaffirm, Marathon’s Server Slam is free right now, whereas Arc Raiders, which costs £32.99, achieved its highest player peak in January this year, several months after it launched in October.
There’s every chance Marathon could soar in popularity when it fully launches and beyond, just like Arc Raiders, but it’s not a common trajectory for most live service games, so we’ll have to see if it can maintain momentum.
At the very least, Bungie has been responding to complaints in quick fashion. Just a few hours after the Server Slam launched, the developer posted a list of issues which it is looking to address, including a confusing user interface, laggy mouse input, and performance woes.
‘Thanks to all of your feedback, we’ve got crucial intel that will help us make updates during the Slam and tie up any loose ends as we continue towards March 5,’ Bungie wrote on X.
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