Marathon Sold Around 1.2 Million Copies — And Didn’t Become the Hit Sony and Bungie Were Hoping For

Analyst Rhys Elliott from Alinea Analytics has published a report estimating that Marathon sold approximately 1.2 million copies across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series. The vast majority of those sales came from Steam.

According to Elliott’s breakdown, just under 70% of copies were sold via Steam, PS5 accounted for roughly 19%, and Xbox for a little over 11%. Championat That last figure is particularly notable for a game made by Bungie — a Sony-owned studio — but Marathon was positioned as a multiplatform release from the start.

Steam’s share comes out to around 800,000 copies, a figure largely corroborated by independent SteamDB tools: three different ownership-tracking plugins put the numbers at 835,100, 848,500, and 1.14 million. The classic “reviews × 30” estimate lands at a similar 884,640. Championat

Elliott’s verdict is blunt:

Marathon hasn’t exactly made the splash that Sony and Bungie were hoping for, even if at its core the game is a design masterpiece.

Why did ARC Raiders blow past it?

The analyst draws a sharp contrast with ARC Raiders, which reached 12 million copies despite launching in a similar genre. The gap in peak concurrent players on Steam speaks for itself: ARC Raiders peaked at 481,966 players (four months ago), while Marathon peaked at just 88,337 (19 days ago). ARC Raiders currently holds a daily peak of 125,795 versus Marathon’s 44,371. Championat

Elliott’s explanation focuses not on genre or gameplay quality, but on the barrier to entry:

Players understand ARC Raiders’ loop within 30 minutes, whereas Marathon’s UI acts as a powerful filter — chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they ever get to feel the depth of Bungie’s signature gameplay.

Marathon was intentionally built as a hostile, unforgiving experience: full-loot PvP, zero handholding for new players. ARC Raiders, by contrast, made the extraction shooter genre more accessible through PvE elements and a narrative scenario generator.

The players who stick around, stay for a long time

The picture isn’t entirely grim for those who pushed through. After peaking at 478,000 daily active users in its first Saturday, Marathon settled into a stable rhythm, holding 345,000 DAU on a recent weekday and averaging 380,000 DAU on weekends. Championat

The average playtime on Steam is 27.8 hours — well ahead of PS5 (16.5 hours) and Xbox (17.3 hours). Additionally, 22% of the Steam audience has crossed 50 hours, and nearly 7% has already logged more than 100 hours. Championat

The bigger picture

For most games, engagement numbers like these would be impressive. But for Bungie — whose Marathon is its first major release outside the Destiny universe in over a decade, built by a large team in one of the most expensive regions of the US — these figures fall short of expectations. This is especially true given that Destiny 2 itself is experiencing a decline that, by Bungie’s own historical standards, would once have been considered dire.

Elliott does caution that the full financial picture remains unclear: internal sales targets, development budget, battle pass and premium skin revenues, and platform fees are all unknown. Still, his conclusion that the game failed to make a significant splash — particularly on PS5 — appears well-founded.

📌 Extra context worth knowing:

• Marathon launched at $40, positioning itself between a AAA and mid-tier price point, which may have set higher expectations from Sony’s side.
• Bungie has had a turbulent few years — multiple rounds of layoffs and the underperformance of Destiny 2’s later expansions — making Marathon a crucial bet for the studio’s future.
• The extraction shooter genre is notoriously hard to break into due to entrenched competition (Escape from Tarkov, Hunt: Showdown, ARC Raiders), and Marathon‘s steep learning curve made it an even tougher sell to a mainstream audience.