Marathon is both Bungie’s main game and Sony’s biggest live service project for the foreseeable future, now that Destiny 2 is about to end with tomorrow’s final update on June 9. Last Tuesday, Bungie launched Marathon season 2 and, at the same time, made the game free for a week to all players looking to try it out. The goal was for them to purchase the game if they were impressed.

The weekend is now over, and while there are a few days left in this test, given the extension of the free week to 10 days, we’re obviously going to be past the peaks, and a lot has happened. And not just in terms of player count watching (though that paints a picture as well). A few things have gone down that have made Marathon season 2’s release a bit… rough, to say the least.

  • Marathon season 2 launched with about 10 hours of server problems, first disconnecting games, eventually servers being taken offline until 11 PM on release day, which, even for Bungie and a few of its botched Destiny releases, was significant and extra poorly timed.
  • The arrival of the nighttime version of Dire Marsh was received well, a spookier version of the map that was truly dark, dark, and certainly changed gameplay without the need for a brand new map.
  • The addition of the new stat point Cradle system allowed newer, more casual players to start sinking points into meaningful upgrades immediately, including key things like heat reduction. There were also significant, positive changes to the UI from season 1.
  • New runner, Sentinel, launched with little fanfare, but the class seems more well-suited for the not-yet-live Cryo map, so full analysis on his addition isn’t complete.
  • However, a few things made the season launch spiral rather quickly. First, it became clear that giving some of the most devoted players instant purple kits was not exactly a great move for seasonal launch balance. Then, a half-dozen blue kits were given out to everyone who tried and failed to play on launch day due to server issues. These two things negated what is the main point of an extraction shooter seasonal wipe, putting everyone on the same playing field. Quickly, that wasn’t the case, and things got worse from there.
  • Namely, it immediately became apparent that Night Dire Marsh was more or less a PvE mode. It had practically no Rooks to battle the singular team on the map, and the ones that were there were barely a threat and more like pets you would adopt. But through a relatively straightforward puzzle/enemy run, players had access to some of the best loot in the game, a slew of golds and purples. That translated into players being able to run killer kits almost instantly and blitz through the new Cradle point system by dismantling tons of valuable gear. It hasn’t even been a week, and the biggest grinders have maxed that out.
  • Bungie’s response to this was to then nerf the loot from Night Dire Marsh in those good chests, and then to slow down Cradle progression by 25%. The problem there, of course, is that these hardest-core players already got all this stuff, and now the playerbase that was not sprinting through these first few days is even further behind with slower progression.
  • Some are even calling for a full-on second wipe, which is totally implausible, but the point stands that the ship has sailed, and this season 2 launch, which put everyone on the same playing field for maybe two hours, was mishandled.
  • Then, a brief look at playercount. It’s important to take into consideration that this is A) the game’s second season launch, B) a free week for anyone to show up and C) a game that has a ratio of 2:1 players on Steam versus console. So, that combination equaled a Steam concurrent peak of 40,000, under half the 88,000 of the game’s initial launch. This did not increase over the weekend, with Friday declining from Thursday, and the numbers remaining flat from there. These last few days will dip lower.

Marathon is about to simultaneously face the end of free week, when many players will depart, but namely tomorrow, the launch of Destiny 2’ s final update. Many, many Marathon players are from the Destiny community, and even those who have put the game down for a while will return, putting a further dent in the season. And who knows when they might return.

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From here, Marathon will continue to iterate on feedback from the season (I’m predicting that at least the Cradle nerf will be reverted). Its Cryo map will launch, a big draw for the most devoted players. There will be a separate, full PvE mode released as an experimental playlist later in the season. As Sony has previously mentioned, they will support the game indefinitely. But no, season 2’s launch has not gone great, as even devoted players would probably admit. Hopefully, things can turn around from here.

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