Marathon has lost more than 95% of its Steam players five months after launch, with its latest daily peak falling below four thousand. Bungie may try to win the audience back through Season 3’s full PvE mode, but the numbers put serious pressure on the PlayStation project.

Bungie’s new Marathon opened with strong interest on Steam, but its active player base has contracted dramatically in only a few months. Publicly available figures show an all-time concurrent peak of 88,337 players, while the latest 24-hour high has dropped to roughly 3,783.

That represents a decline of about 96% from the launch record. Steam cannot reveal the game’s complete PlayStation 5 performance, so it is not a perfect measurement of Marathon’s total audience, but reports suggest that PC was its strongest platform, making the overall trend difficult to interpret positively.

Marathon Season 3 Is Betting on a Full PvE Mode

Bungie will attempt to give the project new momentum with its third season next month. Its most important addition could be a full PvE mode, potentially making Marathon more attractive to players who have so far been discouraged by the competitive risk and constant tension of an extraction shooter.

The crucial question is whether that content can bring back a meaningful portion of the audience. A stable community is essential for a live-service game because matchmaking, seasonal revenue and the long-term development plan all depend on maintaining enough active users.

There is currently no official indication that PlayStation or Bungie has abandoned Marathon, so declaring the game dead would be premature. Nevertheless, losing more than 95% of its Steam peak is an unmistakable warning: Season 3 must do more than add content—it has to convince players that returning is worth their time.

Tech4Gamers