Marathon skyrockets on Steam’s Top Sellers chart after preorders go live — it’s the second best-selling paid game, just below ARC Raiders

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Bungie’s upcoming game, Marathon, a futuristic shooter launching March 5th on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5, is generating a lot of excitement. Player interest is high, and preorders on Steam are selling very well.

Originally planned for a September 2025 release, the launch of Marathon has been postponed. Bungie is using the extra time to add more in-depth gameplay, popular features like nearby voice chat, and a revised visual style with a darker, more atmospheric look. They are also resolving issues related to previously reported art theft.

After a period of silence, the team surprised everyone in December with a detailed video showcasing the incredible progress we’d made on Marathon. It really reassured fans and got them excited about the game again. This week, we finally announced the March release date and opened preorders, and the response has been fantastic – a lot of players jumped at the chance to secure their copy for $39.99.

This success has put Marathon among the top-selling games on Steam. Currently, it’s the second best-selling paid game on the platform, following only ARC Raiders. While games like Counter-Strike 2, Warframe, and Marvel Rivals are higher on the charts, those are free-to-play. Interestingly, ARC Raiders is also an extraction shooter, making it Marathon’s main competitor.

We don’t have sales numbers for Marathon preorders on Xbox, but it’s currently the second most preordered game on PlayStation, behind Resident Evil Requiem (also known as Resident Evil 9).

It’s remarkable how well this game is doing, especially considering that just a few months ago, people were comparing it to ‘Concord 2.0’. That earlier game, a hero shooter for PC and PS5, was a huge failure – Sony shut it down less than two weeks after it launched and eventually closed the development studio completely.

It’s clear that Marathon is likely to do well, especially considering Bungie’s recent previews and the strong initial preorder numbers. The game appears set for a successful launch, at least in the beginning.

The initial months after release will be the most important time for Marathon. It’s not enough for the game to just have a good launch; it needs to consistently deliver a high-quality experience for players in the months and years to come if it’s going to be successful throughout 2026.

Battlefield 6 perfectly illustrates this issue. Although it was the best-selling game of 2025 and the most successful Battlefield title ever, player numbers quickly dropped off. This was due to disappointing early updates and content. The developers have since delayed the release of Season 2 to improve things and try to regain players.

It’s still too early to tell if Marathon’s ongoing live service will be successful – we’ll need to see how the game performs after its March 5th release. However, it now seems likely that the game will launch more successfully than many initially predicted. Given that Bungie, the studio behind Destiny 2, is developing it, they clearly have a lot of experience with this type of game.

Marathon’s Standard Edition usually costs $39.99, but you can currently find it on Steam for $36.69 at Loaded. The Deluxe Edition, which includes extra content and normally costs $59.99, is also on sale at Loaded for $54.39.

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2026-01-21 02:39