By all indications, Bungie’s revival of its Marathon franchise shouldn’t have labored out. Regardless of a CEO’s departure, an indefinite delay, a number of controversies, and focusing on a saturated style, Marathon got here out earlier this month and has grow to be one among this yr’s sudden successes.
Marathon, developed by Bellevue, Wash.-based Bungie (Halo 2, Future), is a multiplayer on-line shooter and a follow-up to Bungie’s traditional Marathon trilogy on the Mac. Initially introduced in 2023, Marathon can also be a aggressive, player-vs-player “sport as a service” (GaaS, or just live-service), which is supposed to be persistently up to date so it may be performed indefinitely.
That was the primary warning signal. As a GaaS, Marathon was up towards heavy competitors from the second it debuted, each from different on-line shooters akin to Fortnite and Name of Responsibility and different “eternally video games” like World of Warcraft and Lifeless by Daylight.
A profitable GaaS could be a license to print cash for its writer, which has led to many sport studios adopting the mannequin in the previous few years. Bungie itself was bought by Sony Leisure in 2022 as a part of a plan by Sony to shift its inner sport growth to emphasise GaaS, owing largely to Bungie’s experience operating the Future collection.
Nevertheless, that very same widespread writer curiosity has flooded the market, particularly in the previous few years. The issue with a sport that’s meant to final eternally is that when it will get its hooks right into a participant, it’s uncommon for them to modify away from it, as a result of time investments, group ties, and — let’s face it — the sunk value fallacy. Many live-service video games are even designed to reward gamers who persistently log in day by day, so a participant who makes use of a few of their finite leisure time to take a look at a competitor’s product can actively hurt their general expertise.
Consequently, anybody who needs to launch any form of GaaS (or actually, any online game in any respect) in 2026 has an uphill battle forward of them to be able to discover an viewers. They not solely have to succeed in shoppers, however they usually should implicitly persuade them to cease taking part in one thing else.
When you’re attempting to market a “hero shooter,” for instance, it’s important to remember that nearly all your potential gamers are already closely invested in Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, or Valorant. It’s not sufficient to supply them an excellent sport. You need to give them a purpose to modify.
It’s a tall order. Even main publishers working with well-known licenses have had issue stepping into this market sector, which has created a massacre. There’s already a whole digital graveyard for just lately discontinued live-service video games, that includes releases akin to Anthem, Multiversus, Rumbleverse, and most just lately Highguard, which was infamously shut down lower than 50 days after its launch in late Jan.
It didn’t assist that Marathon specifically saved racking up warning indicators. It was indefinitely delayed final summer time, which adopted a number of waves of layoffs at Bungie; longtime CEO Pete Parsons departed the corporate in Aug. 2025; Marathon’s writer Sony abruptly deserted one other GaaS, Harmony, in Oct. 2024, which appeared to recommend it was backing off of its bets on live-service gaming; and there was an issue, since resolved, relating to visuals utilized in Marathon that had been stolen from a Scottish freelance artist. It initially seemed like Marathon was headed into catastrophe.
As a substitute, Marathon has taken off. At time of writing, it has a Very Constructive score on Steam with over 33,500 simultaneous gamers, in addition to a good 79 on Metacritic. In opposition to the chances, Bungie seems to have a strong hit on its fingers.
Marathon is a revival of one among Bungie’s earliest franchises. The primary three Marathon video games had been among the first and solely unique video games for the Mac again within the ‘90s, and may be seen as a non secular precursor to Halo: Fight Developed. (Each video games are first-person shooters a few cyborg in energy armor following an AI’s orders whereas they battle aliens. The finer strokes are completely different, however there’s some connective tissue.)
2026’s Marathon is an interquel set 99 years after the occasions of the primary sport, on the planet Tau Ceti IV. It’s been a number of hundred years because the UESC Marathon left Earth’s photo voltaic system on a mission to ascertain an offworld colony and subsequently vanished. In 2893, Earth lastly receives a misery sign from the ship.
Earth reacts by sending a squad of “runners,” people who’ve digitized their minds and might obtain them into cybernetic shells, to Tau Ceti IV. As soon as there, the runners are thrown into an ongoing battle between UESC forces, alien invaders, rogue AIs, and one another. Every particular person runner is a wild card, who can choose to work for a number of factions from each on- and offworld.
Marathon, as a sport, is what’s usually known as an “extraction shooter.” Gamers crew up in teams of 1 to 3 to infiltrate varied areas all through Tau Ceti IV and should tackle each computer-controlled and human enemies to be able to seize no matter they’ll discover. When you’re in a position to survive your mission and efficiently evacuate the world, you possibly can maintain what you’ve discovered and use these salvaged sources to enhance your gear in your subsequent run.
That provides Marathon, and different extraction shooters akin to Escape from Tarkov, a singular rigidity in comparison with extra typical PVP motion video games. Your survival really issues, versus one other shooter the place you would possibly die 6 instances in a good match, and you’ve got one thing to lose.
Marathon combines that with unusual dreamlike visuals which can be harking back to ‘90s cyberpunk, significantly Ghost within the Shell. Tau Ceti’s deserted services are all colourful mazes, stuffed with unusual sights and slim corridors, and all of your fellow runners are barely humanoid robots. The entire sport has a really feel prefer it’s set inside a half-corrupted archive of experimental digital art work, all the best way right down to its font decisions and sophisticated menu construction. It’s a deliberate mix of the Nineteen Nineties’ imaginative and prescient of the long run with cutting-edge 2026 graphics, and appears like nothing else that’s presently on retailer cabinets.
That additionally signifies that it’s obtained a few completely different studying curves. After spending a weekend with the sport, I don’t really feel like I’ve obtained a deal with on it but, both as a shooter or as an audiovisual expertise. Marathon’s menus are a deliberate riot, and whereas its primary mechanics will likely be comfortably acquainted when you’ve performed different current extraction shooters, it’s somewhat tougher to navigate them than it must be.
For proper now, my greatest takeaway from Marathon is that it’s overwhelmed the chances. I wouldn’t have guessed right now final yr that Marathon would have a profitable launch, between Bungie’s points and present market forces, but it surely looks as if there’s nonetheless a minimum of somewhat room for this sort of FPS within the trendy market.
