Over the weekend, I played a lot of the open beta for Marathon, which Bungie dubbed a “Server Slam.” At times, I liked it a lot. At other times, I wasn’t so sure. But my final match before the beta ended convinced me that Marathon is special, even if I’m not at all sure that enough players will feel the same way to keep Bungie’s upcoming sci-fi FPS from flopping.
It was about midnight. We were reaching the end of our session. It had been a rough night. Lots of quick deaths from random players with powerful sniper rifles. Lots of runs where we lost all the great gear we’d brought. Bad times. So when we booted up for one last run, I was convinced that this, too, would end in disaster. I grabbed a powerful rifle, a ton of ammo, and health kits from my vault before we loaded in. We fought through some bots, found a bunch of great loot, and fended off a team of runners. We headed for the extraction, despite knowing our progress in the beta wouldn’t carry over. We still wanted to end the night with a win and take all our new loot home.
Things were going well. Too well. I was nervous that this was all going to come crashing down. And that’s exactly what happened about two minutes later as we activated the extraction. Suddenly, bullets ripped through the air. Before I could even react, I was down. I marked the sniper and crawled behind a concrete wall. My two teammates returned fire. Bam. Another loud shot from the same guy who dropped me. This time, he had downed one of my teammates. This was going to be a horrible way to end the night. My last remaining teammate began healing me, and a few seconds later, I was up. Bam! I was down again. Panic broke out between us.
We die, we lose all that great stuff. Worse, our killers likely leave with most of it. And then, I noticed that the extraction point was ready. It was time to go.
“Crawl!” I yelled. My downed teammate and I dragged our bleeding bodies to the extraction point a few feet behind us. Our one teammate still standing entered action hero mode and began laying down cover fire, while screaming that he was doing so. “Cover fire! COVER FIRE!!” I noticed he took a few rounds. 3 seconds left to extract. More bullets flew in both directions. And then…we escaped. I ogled my inventory, looking over the trinkets I had escaped with, and remembered seconds later that the beta would wipe all progress. I was sad, but Bungie couldn’t wipe my memory. It couldn’t take this story from me.
I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED 😭😭😭😭
A RANDOM ROOK FLYS IN LAST SECOND TO SAVE ME FROM SHROUD AND I DON’T THINK HE EVEN KNOWS IT.
THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST ROOK MOMENT EVER 💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/69F5V2NoXP
— Diffizzle (@TooDiffizzle) March 2, 2026
Marathon is going to be a hard sell. In many ways, it is a meaner, faster, and more aggressive extraction shooter than last year’s big hit, Arc Raiders. It also features more finicky menus to tinker with during matches and, at least in the Server Slam, lacks the cooperative community of Arc Raiders. My last match was so good and so memorable, but I also suffered through some real slogs during the beta, the sort of thing that will likely be boring or frustrating for many players. By the end of a few nights, it had won me over. But how many will be willing to commit later this week when Marathon launches on March 5?
To be blunt about it: I’m not sure Marathon is going to be a hit. I think the sweaty combat and punishing loop are going to scare a lot of people away. I don’t know if Bungie will survive as a studio if Marathon flops like the next Concord or Highguard. But all I can think about right now, with the servers down until launch, is how much I want to hop back into Marathon’s tense mix of chaos, looting, and escape. Fail or succeed, I just want more time with Marathon and hope I get more moments like the one I had in that last beta match.