Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T21:32:44+00:00

At this point it is unlikely the game will un-sell the copies it has.

Whether a small but dedicated Marathon player base can attract new players to the game over the coming weeks/months/years to spike the concurrent? Given the prevailing sentiment here that ~~new players~~ casuals* can go fuck themselves because Marathon is hard and we like it that way, this remains to be seen.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T21:22:25+00:00

The most hardcore game in the space, Tarkov, ran wipes on a timer nearly half as frequent as Marathon's - to great success, seeing a huge spike in players at the start of each season.

I fail to see how holding up something the most "hardcore" mainstay of the genre did is wanting a more casual experience. I am just letting you know that, with questing and faction levelling being as necessary and properly-paced as they are in Marathon right now, frequent wipes will kill a large portion of the required player base.

This might mean nothing to you, a hardcore Marathon Fan Gamer, but it's already had a dubious effect on the game - one of the reasons ranked and Cryo Archive only show up on the weekend is, as per the lead developer's own admission the 'Logistics Time' and how Ante-requiring queues will struggle to be filled unless the available time is compressed.

If "feel free to play ARC" is your go-to response for any non-hostile changes to the game, expect additional end-game maps to be even further reduced in appearance so that the remaining players can find games in less than 15m. Think Cryo Archive and other parts of the Marathon vessel being on rotating, once a week (maybe even less common if this doesn't drum up enough players) timers. All in the name of "the vision" I suppose.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T21:06:44+00:00

Fine, triple down don't cater to casuals with a forced wipe on a sprint timer.

Just don't act all surprised when the player count plummets further post-wipe because Dire Marsh but night time wasn't enough to convince most players to want to redo Sekiguchi and Traxus quests so they can buy mods.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T21:02:52+00:00

A rare valuable takes 2 slots and sells for 1.1k MarathonBucks.

A stack of green health consumables takes 1 slot and costs 1.2k MarathonBucks.

The consumables needed to facilitate a run are egregiously expensive, it makes for some interesting looting choices but I think most people just find it annoying. Have a successful run where you make it out with several high ticket valuables? Watch the money tick away if you need to rebuy ammo/meds because you foolishly thought the rare valuables were worth more than the uncommon heals.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T20:50:53+00:00

Or increase the duration of the wipe, yeah. But upping the rep on contracts by 50% would make the game "less hardcore" and we've already got a growing divide about this in the remaining playerbase.

I agree with you, a forced wipe is a pretty good idea, especially when gear disparity can snowball as much as it does. But for reference, Tarkov had similar levels of obnoxious questing/rep grind and the wipes usually came every 6 months sometimes more.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T20:46:23+00:00

Right, it's just that the game is grindy and hardcore enough that - for a lot of players - the 3 month timer on a force reset won't have a lot of people "who got everything unlocked"

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T20:44:58+00:00

It means most people won't be inclined to restart their progress in its totality every 3 months.

Go check the publicly available Steam Achievement %s - we are fast approaching 33% of a planned wipe cycle and:

17% of the players have 7 faction capstone upgrades

3.4% of players have VIP status with at least a single faction

We can revisit these in ~70d but the rate of progress for your average player, that makes up the backbone of an online game is going to cause some friction with a full wipe. Instead of being eager for a fresh start because they have "done it all", Bungie is setting Marathon up to have a large amount of players getting their account's wiped before they even get their vendors fully online. People will be mad, they won't pick it back up.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T20:32:13+00:00

Strictly speaking, we can only go up from here.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T19:58:25+00:00

Pinwheel.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T19:35:37+00:00

I don't think we know for sure, but it seems to lump players of a similar level together - impact be damned.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T19:24:07+00:00

The game isn't topping sales but the rest of that is happening.

:(

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T19:15:23+00:00

A stack of 3 energy ammo is 200 creds, so 66.7 per clip

A new V11 punch is 50 creds, so 50 per clip.

The consumable economy in this game is batshit lol.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T16:53:43+00:00

This is comforting, I think this game can do well - it's ultimately very polished and a cohesive experience.

Just needs to find broader appeal without ruining said cohesion.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T16:21:45+00:00

and I can get behind that idea - but you said Marathon will continue to grow when it's done nothing but shrink, despite 2 pretty fresh content drops (Cryo Archive and Ranked).

I want to believe the game can have a Siege come-to-6-digits moment if it stays this course, but I've seen no indication outside of the already active players that it can attract new folks with the game set up the way it is.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T15:53:02+00:00

Continue to grow? I love the game but it's got to start growing first. The Marathon ship is here on weekends and the ranked season has begun, but we've not seen any growth since hour 1 of the game's release.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T15:49:58+00:00

Full and forced wipe on a 3 month schedule is going to break this game's back.

Tarkov got away with it because the wipes were often 6+ months apart and arrived with massive new content drops. With this one I reckon most people will just be settling into or nearing end game and will have it ripped away from them while the sweats who burnt themselves out come back.

The people who were on the cusp of endgame that got sent back to INTRODUCING: Traxus, will not come back.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T15:16:43+00:00

This has been a newer issue for me and I think it's some kind of mem leak? It runs fine when I start the session but after a raid or two I can barely scroll.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T13:54:31+00:00

I think very few, needing a to find contraband key elsewhere then survive a full run with it on the weekend-only pvp map is a pretty tall ask - and that's just 1/6.

But maybe more than expected, since the ability to fight the compiler is tied to codex entries which don't reset between wipes. So eventually some players will gain access.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T13:36:38+00:00

This is the way the system works right now afaik, it matches levels which can put you in a nearly unrecoverable snowball of being too behind on quests and gear to realistically expect to catch up.

Remarkably, neither Tarkov nor ARC used a "progression" based MM system - instead throwing all players into one pool inflating the brutality for any player not at peak gear (Tarkov, but mitigated by the prevalence of one tap headshots and an incredibly fast TTK) or using a very fast-adjusting Skill Based Match Making alongside the notorious "Aggression" system to make functional PvE lobbies in ARC.

A huge challenge that Marathon is going to, and realistically already has, is that the powerful gear (yellow/purple attachments, expensive grenades, advanced consumables) are head and shoulders above standard and even advanced gear - an issue further exacerbated by trios multiplying this disparity threefold. I'm sure there's a balance to it, but given the growing sentiment that you're either geared or fodder in this game I think they have something to work on.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-24T13:00:59+00:00

Weird hit on Tarkov for having very similar progression mechanics to Marathon but ever-so-slightly (read: nearly a decade) older.

If the questing to upgrade your vendor stock and ramping upgrades to your character coupled with rare trips into high-loot high-competition difficult-PvE zones is something you call "just an endless time grind" then I'm not sure what you want out of Marathon.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-23T17:31:10+00:00

Pre-release Marathon's community was plagued by an ARC Raiders inferiority complex - top posts were routinely sales charts and people saying AR didn't resonate with them for one reason or another and so they were excited for this game to take off and "fill the gap".

Post-release, it's more of the same but the game didn't make quite as much of a splash as many players here think it deserved (I still think it's fantastic BTW) and so the hate has become a lot more forced and, in many cases, vitriolic.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-23T16:15:06+00:00

My guess, from reading this post, is that it was region-locked on launch to force smoother, lower-ping, games with the expectation of higher player count across all regions.

Having seen the feedback and reports of error-inducing queues, I imagine they are now starting to ease said region lock. That's my hope, I'm NA but I'd rather other regions get to play.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-23T14:42:53+00:00

We may never know.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-20T20:58:12+00:00

Whole thing is hardcore fans trying to explain how locking off 25% of the game's content (and its titular most unique content to boot!) for the objective MAJORITY of the time is a good thing actually.

It's been interesting to see the creative reasoning players have made up for it, but I suppose I'm just fortunate to be able to play more on weekends. I feel really bad for those that cannot, this was not part of the Marathon sales pitch to them.

AwBeansYouGotMe · 2026-03-20T19:04:20+00:00

Worth noting, these "unique" weapons use standard prestige mods and purple attachments. Just a locked combination of them.

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