Ahead of its upcoming launch across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 on March 5, Bungie's new futuristic extraction shooter Marathon is enjoying a massive comeback in terms of overall player reception and perception. As a result, preorders for the FPS are selling extremely well, at least on Valve's PC gaming platform Steam.
Marathon was originally supposed to launch in September 2025, but was delayed indefinitely while Bungie added deeper gameplay elements and highly requested features like proximity chat, while also reworking the game's "graphic realism" art direction to give it a "darker tone" and addressing its publicized art theft debacle.
The studio then went quiet on the title until December, at which point it dropped a massive ViDoc video that showed off many extensive improvements made to Marathon, restoring the faith of many and reigniting excitement for the shooter. Then, Bungie announced its March release date this week and pushed preorders live, driving tons of players to buy their $39.99 copy early.
That's led to where things stand now, with Marathon currently of the best-selling games on Steam. In fact, on the platform's official Top Sellers chart, it's the second best-selling paid game (Counter-Strike 2, Warframe, and Marvel Rivals are above it, but are free-to-play) behind only Embark Studios' hugely popular ARC Raiders — another extraction shooter, notably, and Marathon's direct competition.
There's no way to track how well its preorders are selling on Xbox, but it's worth noting that Marathon is also the second best-selling game on PlayStation's preorders list, with Resident Evil Requiem (AKA, Resident Evil 9) holding the first-place position.
These are impressive feats for a game that many were calling "Concord 2.0" a few months ago, comparing it to the disastrous PC and PS5 hero shooter that Sony shut down less than two weeks post-launch, then ultimately axed permanently and closed its developer.
Clearly, Marathon isn't going to suffer a similar fate, and between everything that Bungie's shown off recently and this explosive preorder sales performance, the extraction shooter is actually poised to be quite a success — at least initially.
The first few months after launch is the period I expect will be the most interesting to watch, and also the most critical for Marathon to succeed strongly throughout the rest of 2026. After all, live-service games can't just launch well; they need to provide a quality, y'know, live service in the months and years that follow.
Battlefield 6 stands as a chief example of why this is important. While the large-scale multiplayer FPS became the best-selling game of 2025 and has enjoyed more success than any other Battlefield, its player count has plummeted due to underwhelming updates and additions in its first few months, with the devs delaying Season 2 to refine it and hopefully right the ship, so-to speak.
Of course, we won't know how well Marathon handles its own live-service formula until the game's March 5 launch, and after some time passes following its arrival. But at the very least, it's likely the game will have a stronger start than most thought it would just a few weeks ago. And it has to be said that, as the dev of Destiny 2, Bungie has a wealth of experience, here.
Note that while the Standard Edition of Marathon officially costs $39.99, you can get the Steam version for $36.69 at Loaded thanks to a nice deal. The $59.99 Deluxe Edition with some extra goodies is going for a discounted price of $54.39 at Loaded, also.
Are you excited to play Marathon? Do you think the game will have lasting success like ARC Raiders has thus far, or are you concerned that Bungie will drop the ball with its live service? Let me know in the comments.
Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!
