The Marathon player count has been a hot topic among gamers over the past few days. Bungie’s extraction shooter launched on Thursday, March 5, but has performed below expectations so far. While the game has a solid player base, the numbers suggest that it hasn’t reached the same level of popularity as other live-service games.
The launch of the game was quite modest, as it failed to reach the mark of 100,000 concurrent players on Steam. Considering that Marathon Server Slam, the game’s demo, reached a peak of 143,621 players, both players and Bungie likely expected a stronger launch.
How many players play Marathon?
On the launch day, Marathon reached a peak of 88,337 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB. This number isn’t disastrous, but it’s far from great, especially since it fell below 80,000 on the second day. Fortunately, the player count may increase over the weekend, so the next 48 hours will be important to watch.
To put this into perspective, the Overwatch player count peaked at nearly twice as many players on the first day of the big Season 1 update. Slay the Spire 2, another game that launched on March 5, has peaked at nearly half a million players.
Like many multiplayer games, Marathon experienced a surge of interest during early access and beta periods. However, things have taken a turn for the worse since the release date, which was surprising considering the hype surrounding the game.
Another factor affecting the Marathon player count could be the early feedback from the community. While many players have praised the gameplay itself, discussions online suggest there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Many players have complained about the lack of duo queues, inventory management, the Battle Pass design, and more.
Despite these complaints, many players are optimistic about Marathon’s future and believe that Bungie can improve it. With the first weekend after the launch underway, we will get a clear picture of where the extraction shooter stands, as it could still surpass 100,000 concurrent players.
The good news is that the game has performed relatively well on streaming services, and this trend may continue over the weekend, as Bungie is offering Marathon Twitch Drops until March 9.
