Waiting for Marathon it's finally over Bungie's pull-out shooter has had a long and rocky road to get to this point, but it's finally crossed the finish line. Marathon it has already received many strong responses, which is promising. At the time of writing, the game's Steam reviews are “Very Positive” and Server Slam helped create some much-needed positive hype ahead of launch. However, its main competitor continues to reign supreme.
ARC Raiders launched back in October and introduced one of the most affordable extraction shooters to date. Before ARC Raidersgenre was a more niche world, but Embark Studios' concept of this game attracted an impressive number of players. The Marathon vs. ARC Raiders debate has the potential to be a version of the extraction shooter genre Call of Duty vs. Battlefieldbut ARC Raiders is clearly in the lead, at least when it comes to Steam numbers.
Best Computer Settings for Marathon (Optimization Guide)
While Marathon is reasonably optimized on PC, players can further improve its performance by trying out these best settings to achieve higher FPS.
ARC Raiders Steam numbers will be hard to beat
- Players are currently active — 124,095
- Player's peak of all time — 481, 966
ARC RaidersThe number of players may have dropped since its peak, but that's normal. Since the launch of the game, ARC Raiders managed to maintain a steady audience, and that's ultimately the most important thing. A massive climax means nothing if the game can't convince players to come back again and again.
Arrange the covers in the correct US release order.
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Arrange the covers in the correct US release order.
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An unfortunate example of this happened recently as well. Hero shooter High Guardian is shutting down even though it was launched at the end of January. The game had an all-time high of nearly 100,000 players at launch, but quickly declined. The game will officially end on March 12th. Right now High Guardian has around 350 active players. Player retention is one of the hardest parts of building a live service game, but Embark Studios has been incredibly successful ARC Raiders yet. Games like ARC Raiders and Helldivers 2 they took unique approaches to the live services model that helped them stand out and stay interesting.
Marathon may not pull in ARC Raiders numbers, but it's well on its way
- Players are currently active — 46,179
- Player's peak of all time — 88,337
That's a modest number of players in comparison ARC Raidersbut it's definitely not bad. Additionally, this is only for Steam players. There is a real possibility that ARC Raiders could end up cornering a more PC audience while Marathon is taking over the console market. It's really too early to tell, but MarathonSteam numbers are nothing to scoff at. The Slam server peaked at 143,621 so Marathon it lost nearly half of those participants at launch (although that's actually impressive, since many of those players were probably just trying it out because it was free). There is still plenty of time to bounce back. Bungie has also already been confirmed to be making changes Marathon following feedback on Server Slam, with one of the biggest complaints being Marathonuser interface design. Once these updates are made, it's very possible that more players will join the fun. Again, though ARC Raiders has quite an advantage on Steam, MarathonPC numbers are still very solid.
Marathon and ARC Raiders are in two very different phases right now
Marathon had been out for about 24 hours at this point and ARC Raiders it's been out for months. The latter may have started very well, but not every game success story is the same. Marathon could very well be a diamond in the rough that is becoming an even bigger competitor ARC Raiders as Bungie improves and improves it. Also, both extraction shooters are incredibly different, so there's room for fans of the genre to enjoy both. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out as the year continues Marathon vs. ARC Raiders the discourse is still evolving. Since they feel like they're worlds apart, they'll likely develop their own specific audience over time, though there's sure to be some overlap and a back-and-forth battle for a piece of the extraction shooter player base.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Animated blood, language, violence, in-game purchases, user interaction
- Multiplayer
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Online multiplayer, online co-op
