- Marathon’s active player count has fallen below Destiny 2’s figures on Steam.
- This is concerning as Marathon reportedly sold most of its copies on Steam and is now clearly struggling.
- Bungie has plans to make the game more player-friendly in Season 2 and support it in the long run.
Marathon has been out for a while now, and both Bungie and PlayStation are dedicated to supporting the first-person shooter for as long as possible. At the same time, however, the extraction shooter has rapidly lost its population as interest from the gaming crowd dwindles.
Marathon continues to show the same trend despite Bungie’s plans. Recently, the game has even fallen below Destiny 2’s player count on Steam.
Why it matters: Live-service titles live and die by their popularity, and publishers have shown to pull funds if a major AAA release fails to attract enough interest shortly after launch.
As shown above, Marathon peaked at just 12,560 concurrent players on Steam in the last 24 hours. The game also has just 5,990 active players at the time of writing, a disappointing figure for the weekend.
In comparison, Destiny 2 peaked at 13,146 concurrent players in the last 24 hours and 6,597 active players on Steam at the moment. Neither of the two figures is particularly great, but this is more concerning for Marathon than Destiny 2 due to the latter’s age.
It is important to understand that Destiny 2 is a free-to-play title compared to Marathon, which launched at a price of $40 earlier this year. However, because Marathon is such a recent title, this rapid loss in player numbers cannot be good for Bungie’s long-term plans.
Also, it is said that most of the extraction shooter’s population exists on Steam. This is likely not the case for Destiny 2, which was a console exclusive long before it arrived on PC.
Ultimately, Bungie might be forced to take drastic measures at this rate. The gaming giant is clearly doing everything it can to earn players’ trust when it comes to its latest release, but the figures show that future promises have not done enough yet.
For now, Marathon Season 2 is set to launch next month, promising to make the game more beginner-friendly and introduce PVE and PVP-lite modes.
Are you still playing Bungie’s latest extraction shooter? Let us know in the comments and on the Tech4Gamers Forums.
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[Senior News Reporter]
Avinash is currently pursuing a Business degree in Australia. For more than 5 years, he has been working as a gaming journalist, utilizing his writing skills and love for gaming to report on the latest updates in the industry. Avinash loves to play action games like Devil May Cry and has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as IGN, GamesRadar, GameRant, Dualshockers, CBR, and Gamespot.
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