{"id":699530,"date":"2026-07-19T06:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T06:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/699530\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T06:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T06:01:17","slug":"marathons-player-base-is-collapsing-and-bungies-future-looks-increasingly-bleak-as-concerns-grow-around-the-studios-live-service-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/699530\/","title":{"rendered":"Marathon\u2019s player base is collapsing, and Bungie\u2019s future looks increasingly bleak as concerns grow around the studio\u2019s live\u2011service direction"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to really put into words how I feel about Bungie<\/a> right now. As a lifelong Halo fan, the studio will always have a special place in my heart, but the way it has operated since leaving Xbox has been less than ideal and, honestly, devastating to watch as a fan.<\/p>\n

For those out of the loop, Bungie recently shifted its focus away from Destiny in favor of Marathon<\/a>. Unfortunately, that decision doesn\u2019t appear to be paying off. Marathon recently peaked at around 6,000 concurrent players on Steam<\/a>, while Destiny 2<\/a> reached almost 60,000 during the same period, <\/a>around 10 times more than Marathon.<\/p>\n

It’s also worth mentioning that Marathon isn’t even within the top 100 most played games on Xbox, behind titles like Gears of War 2 and Fable<\/a> 3, both of which are Xbox 360<\/a> games.<\/p>\n

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\"Steam
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Marathon’s Steam Charts as of 18th July 2026 (Image credit: Windows Central | SteamDB<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, though, Destiny fans; Bungie has a solution. It\u2019s adding a limited-time PvE mode to Marathon for just two weeks<\/a>. I\u2019m sure that\u2019ll go over well. In all seriousness, though, I don\u2019t want to make fun of Bungie too much. What\u2019s happened to the studio, especially after the recent layoffs<\/a>, which are genuinely sad to see.<\/p>\n

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I really do hope Bungie lands on its feet, whatever that future looks like. Still, the studio\u2019s direction feels increasingly uncertain, and it\u2019s hard not to wonder what happens next for one of gaming\u2019s most iconic developers. It\u2019s not difficult to imagine a future where Bungie ends up as more of a support studio, especially as its valuation continues to decline from the $3.6 billion Sony paid to acquire it.<\/a><\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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For context, Sony not too long ago recorded an impairment loss of roughly $766 million against Bungie<\/a>. In simple terms, that\u2019s an acknowledgment that the studio is now considered less valuable than when Sony<\/a> acquired it for $3.6 billion. Whether that figure grows in future earnings remains to be seen, but given Bungie\u2019s recent struggles, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it did.<\/p>\n

Mind you, this is all without mentioning that Marathon’s game director, Joseph Ziegler, has just left Bungie.<\/a> Although the torch has been passed on, his departure is yet another worrying sign for Marathon’s future.<\/p>\n

Let me know how you feel about Bungie, the current state of Marathon, and where you think the studio goes from here in the comments below. Also, be sure to take part in our poll!<\/p>\n

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Join us on Reddit at r\/WindowsCentral <\/a>to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to really put into words how I feel about Bungie right now. As a lifelong Halo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-699530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}