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Many fans of Marathon, the newly launched extraction shooter from Bungie, are rightfully worried about the game’s future. Sony Interactive Entertainment, which acquired the Destiny developer for $3.7 billion in 2022, has high expectations for the new live-service game after five years of development. And while Marathon has received largely positive reviews on Steam, the number of concurrent players at the game’s launch are concerning, particularly when compared to its biggest rival in the genre, ARC Raiders. Marathon isn’t dead on arrival by any means, but with Sony having closed Bluepoint Games in February and recent news that Wildlight’s hero shooter Highguard would be shut down in just six weeks after launch, the stakes are high.
Marathon’s Steam numbers at launch are concerning (but not the whole picture)
Based on SteamDB data within the first 24 hours of Marathon’s launch on March 5, the game had an all-time peak of roughly 88,000 players.
To put that into context from several angles, the Marathon Server Slam event that occurred over the weekend before the game’s launch reached a peak of around 143,000 concurrent players. The higher numbers here can be partially explained by the beta test being free (whereas Marathon has a $40 price tag at launch).
As a comparison to other extraction shooters, ARC Raiders has roughly 200,000 concurrent players, Delta Force has about 160,000, and Escape From Tarkov has about 17,000. Taking this into consideration, Marathon’s 88,000 concurrent players isn’t terrible, but it’s likely not what Bungie is looking for out of the gate, given that the player count for most games tends to decline over time.
That said, it’s not the end of the line. It’s not yet clear how many players Marathon has on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, and it will take some time before these console figures emerge. While the extraction shooter genre is mainly based on PC, a large part of the playerbase for Marathon comes from Bungie’s prior work with Destiny 2, which had a significant multi-platform presence. In a report from the Alinea Analytics Substack, 74% of the those who played the Server Slam previously played Destiny 2. Interestingly, only 48% of Marathon testers had played ARC Raiders, so there’s less overlap than one might expect between the audiences for both titles.
Marathon has a lot of room for improvement
One of main problem areas for Marathon, however, is that it struggles to bring in and retain new players within the first few hours of the game. The Server Slam testers have noted on social media (and elsewhere) that the game’s user interface is difficult to navigate and it’s tough to figure out what many items do without having to hover the cursor over them. Doing something as simple as swapping out an implant requires players to navigate through multiple menus. Bungie has fortunately acknowledged the problems and is committed to improving the UI with player feedback.
What’s more difficult to resolve is how quickly new players can be killed while they are still adapting to the gameplay. As noted by the analytics report, “many players are being sent back to the lobby by AI before they even encounter another human.” Combined with the clunky UI, this can create a frustratingly enough experience that players quit before discovering the solid, refined gameplay that Bungie has created for the game. So despite the fact that user reviews for the game on Steam is at an impressive 90%, many have chosen to quit soon after the tutorial.
Another lingering issue is that Marathon’s battle pass (or reward pass) isn’t particularly generous when compared to those from other games, like ARC Raiders. Even if you purchase the premium version of the pass, there is no way to earn that currency back as a rebate to purchase the next one the following season. Many of the cosmetics available in the track are essentially color unlocks for existing skins, and the first seasonal pass only has one new character skin. It’s become enough of a problem that a Reddit post calling out the battle pass has received over 4,500 upvotes. Bungie will need to figure out how to make these microtransactions more enticing to convince players to spend on a game that isn’t free to play.
The three-month seasonal wipes have likewise become a controversial sticking point, though there are benefits to this and it’s a common mechanic in the genre.
Thankfully for Marathon, Bungie has a good amount of time to update the game with quality-of-life improvements, though the faster it does so, the better. There’s a lot of competition in the extraction shooter genre, let alone the multiplayer shooter genre in general. But hopefully Sony will be patient enough to give the developer enough time to increase the game’s player count.
The post Why The Future of Bungie’s Marathon Is on Shaky Ground appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
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