The official release of Marathon is still a week away, but the open-beta Server Slam event is getting underway today. And if the early response on Steam is any indication, Bungie’s new extraction shooter won’t go the way of Concord.
Marathon is currently No. 3 on Steam’s list of the best-selling games. Only Resident Evil Requiem and Counter-Strike 2 are ahead of it at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Requiem is out tomorrow, so its success isn’t unexpected. Considering the competition, Marathon is doing very well so far, and it’s two slots ahead of Arc Raiders, which is currently at No. 5.
The Server Slam event is designed to see how well Marathon’s infrastructure can handle the influx of players ahead of the game’s launch. The Server Slam hasn’t been live for long, but it’s already over 100k concurrent players, making it bigger than all but seven games at the time of this writing.
It remains to be seen how high its concurrent players rank can go, and if Marathon can sustain and grow its audience. As demonstrated by the recent fall of Highguard, a big launch doesn’t mean anything if players don’t stick around.
Players who take part in Marathon’s Server Slam will have the chance to earn rewards, and there are also Twitch Drops for fans who just want to watch someone else play. PS Plus subscribers who play the Marathon beta will receive weapon charms based on other Sony games, including Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, and Helldivers 2. Xbox Series X|S and PC players will also get weapons charms of their own. However, the rewards from Sever Slam and the Twitch Drops won’t be available until Marathon launches.
Marathon will be released on March 5 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s currently available on Fanatical for $34.39.
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