Bungie’s Marathon hasn’t had the greatest of starts, and players are now accusing Bungie of sabotaging the game with the way its Season 2 update has been handled so far. A visually standout PvPvE extraction shooter, Marathon is a kind of follow-up to Bungie’s first-ever release, the 1994 MacOS classic Marathon, though the franchise’s pivot towards live-service coverage has been troubled to say the least.
Whereas Destiny 2 had been the studio’s flagship project for the better part of the last decade, that balance changed in April 2026, with most veteran Bungie devs switching to work on Marathon. Destiny 2 is now functionally finished, with all live-service features concluded, and all future content canceled, much to its player base’s chagrin. At the same time, Marathon is having a hard time maintaining a healthy player base of its own.
Why Destiny 3 Is Not a Given for Bungie’s Next Game
Destiny 3 may still be possible, but Bungie’s next chapter may depend on Marathon finding its footing after Destiny 2’s final update arrives soon.
Bungie is Mishandling Marathon’s Live-Service Updates, Players Unhappy
Marathon‘s Season 2 update tackled many of the game’s growing pains, but it hasn’t come out in a perfect way. One of its biggest problems, according to the community, is the fact that Cradle XP gains have been substantially reduced. The result is a big increase in the game’s grindiness, and some players outright accuse Bungie of attempting to “kill [their] game” by doing so. The logic is that massive increases to Marathon‘s XP grind will only exacerbate the game’s biggest problems and make it less likely that it will attract new players.
Though Marathon has certainly received its fair share of blind hate, the point brought up by the community isn’t necessarily wrong. Whereas Destiny 2‘s final update effectively breathed new life into the game to the point that the servers crashed, Marathon hasn’t had the same sort of injection since day one. Concurrent player counts have their problem as a game health assessment metric, but Marathon‘s 12K daily player peak doesn’t compare favorably to Destiny 2‘s 115K peak. Making the game grindier on purpose isn’t likely to have a positive effect in this respect.
Not even Marathon‘s sorely needed second free week did much to elevate its daily player counts, to the point that one can’t help but wonder if the core concept simply isn’t appealing enough to the average player. Crucially, none of this speaks to the game’s actual quality: Marathon is a Bungie FPS through-and-through with crisp gameplay, striking visuals, and an existential horror narrative. Its core gameplay loop, however, is that of a PvPvE extraction shooter, and that might be what’s making it less appealing than it ought to be.
What’s That Weapon?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Bungie obviously isn’t looking to sabotage its own bread and butter, such as it is. Destiny 2 is done, and it’s not coming back, and Bungie faces a massive reduction in staff as part of the summer layoffs. It’s not in the company’s best interest for it to make its own games less interesting to the wider public, and Cradle XP is likely just an example of the team making a tactical mistake at a highly inopportune time. Changes, thankfully, have been getting deployed rather quickly in Marathon‘s agile sandbox, so it’s still possible for Bungie to steer the ship in the right direction.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Animated Blood, Language, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
