Marathon launch player numbers are about half those of the Server Slam, at least on PC

After a couple of delays, a plagiarism lawsuit, and at least one internal reboot, Bungie’s next big game has officially launched. Marathon, the extraction shooter from the studio behind Destiny, has managed to find a decent, if a little small of an audience.

The game’s player numbers on Steam are being compared to its recent free, open weekend, and not in a favourable manner.

Prior to Marathon’s launch, Bungie held a multi-day Server Slam, which offered anyone interested in playing the game a chance to try out almost all of its classes, two of its maps, as well as many of its gameplay and progression systems.

The open test was largely well-received, and players actually showed up for it. It peaked at a very respectable 143,621 concurrent players on Steam, which put it within striking distance of the peak concurrent of its chief competitor, Arc Raiders – at least when you compare both of their pre-launch Server Slam events.

In Arc Raiders’ case, those figures were far outpaced at the game’s actual launch, and the Embark shooter continues to command a very active player base to this day. A paid product garnering far more players than the same product’s own free sampler is never not a good sign, so many hoped something similar would happen with Marathon.

Marathon has now officially launched, and it doesn’t look like it managed to pull an Arc Raiders – at least so far. At its peak, the Bungie shooter attracted 88,337 concurrent players on Steam (via SteamDB), which is a little over half of its Server Slam’s 143,621 peak concurrent.

Numbers have, of course, dropped since then, which is normal, as players log off for the night. This is obviously not the end of the road for Marathon. Friday, and the weekend, may well push numbers closer to the Server Slam heights.

Indeed, word of mouth is quite positive, with the game currently sitting at a Very Positive user review rating on Steam, based on over 4,600 reviews. As has been proven time and time again in recent years, nothing catapults a game like players emphatically advocating for it to their friends, so it could simply be that mainstream players are cautious.

It will become clear where things settle over the weekend.