Marathon just received its most significant update since launch and barely anyone’s able to play it right now. Bungie’s extraction shooter is facing a prolonged server outage due to ongoing error issues on what was supposed to be the first day of its reintroduction to new and returning players. It’s basically the worst thing that could have happened to a live-service game that’s already fighting for its life.
Marathon season 2 went live on June 2, bringing with it overhauled progression systems, a new character type, and a new nighttime map and survival horror-infused game mode. On paper, the changes and additions seemed great, convincing many existing players to jump back in. More importantly, the game being free for the first week made Tuesday the perfect time to try and convince some new friends to hop into the game as well.
Unfortunately, that’s been next to impossible for much of the day. Within the first couple of hours of server maintenance finishing and the game coming back online, Bungie was reporting “an increase in Weasel and Anteater error codes.” A couple of hours later, the problems were bad enough that the studio was already distributing free loot packs to players. By nearly 7:00 p.m. ET, the servers were brought offline to try to roll out fixes.
https://x.com/glorpinity/status/2061976488837267643
“We need additional time to complete Marathon maintenance and deploy the patch,” Bungie wrote around 9:00 p.m. ET, when servers were originally supposed to come back online. “We appreciate your patience and will provide additional updates when they are ready.” At the time of writing it’s not immediately clear when things will be resolved.
“It sucks how good the new season felt within those couple matches I got to play,” wrote Twitch streamer Knitehawk. “Hopefully the next update fixes everything and we can really see what the team cooked up.”
What makes the timing especially unfortunate is that it comes at the same time when hundreds of thousands were tuning into Sony’s big PlayStation State of Play summer showcase and caught the promo for Marathon mid-way through. Since the game is currently free, there was no barrier to entry. It was the perfect time for people curious about the game to actually download it and check it out.
If season 2 really knocks it out of the park, the initial stumble right out of the gate might not end up being a big deal. But with Destiny 2 being sunset and significant layoffs reportedly hitting Bungie in the months ahead, Marathon needs all the help it can get.