Destiny 2 fans are spiraling after Bungie announced the sci-fi MMO would be sunset with one final update in June. While some are paying tribute to the developers who made it, others are lashing out and looking for someone or something to blame. A few have settled on Bungie’s new PvP extraction shooter Marathon as the target and have tried to review-bomb the multiplayer game on Steam as a result.
Their theory of the case is that Sony is making Bungie kill Destiny 2 so that Marathon has a shot at living. Resources that might have been invested in rebooting the company’s existing shooter are going to Bungie’s newest project instead. If not for Marathon’s prolonged development and poor launch, the thinking goes, Bungie might have runway not only to continue pursuing a new planned expansion for Destiny 2, but maybe even an entire new sequel.
This is nonsense, of course, but it hasn’t stopped some online fans from taking their anger out in the review section of Marathon on Steam. “Destiny Series is better,” wrote one player who downloaded and played the extraction shooter just so they could refund it later with a negative review. “Destiny Died for this game to fail. There is only one person to blame,” wrote another who did the same.
The effort spanned over 250 negative reviews across three days, bringing the game’s recent review rating from 86 percent positive to just 77. Marathon players were quick to hit back, flooding the game with an unexpected influx of fresh positive takes. Over 500 positive reviews have been left since Destiny 2‘s end was announced. At least some players tried to bridge the gap between the two fandoms.
“I liked Destiny, overall,” reads one of the new reviews from a lapsed Destiny 2 player. “I’m not amazing at PvP games, just above average. I also like Hunt: Showdown, a low-TTK extraction PvP game with clunky controls, low mobility, and a high focus on audio as a resource to manage within gunfights, essentially acting as a stealth survival horror. Marathon bridges the gap between the two really beautifully.”
Not everyone feels that way, and it’s clear that Marathon‘s roguelite inspiration and brutal community etiquette has made it a tough sell despite the deep passion among those who play it. While both games now have similar daily peak concurrent players on Steam, Destiny 2 peaked at over 300,000, while Marathon never broke 100,000.
Nevertheless, Bungie reportedly has the greenlight to continue investing in Marathon for the foreseeable future. It’s set to get a PvE-only mode next season and a number of other tweaks and new content updates throughout its first year. Whether all of that becomes enough to make it a sustainable live-service venture for Sony and Bungie remains to be seen.
But it’s clear Destiny 2‘s troubles were of its own making. The were cracks in the foundation even before The Final Shape expansion launched in 2024, and the game has had almost nothing but missteps since, with no clear idea of what a compelling future for the game looks like. While I’d love to see Destiny 2 continue, it’s silly to try to lay any of the blame for its stumbles at the feet of its younger, much smaller sibling.
