We reported yesterday on the reveal of Marathon‘s official March 5 launch date, alongside the release of a new pre-order trailer to build hype. We’re less than 24 hours from that story, and Marathon has already become a top selling game on Steam’s global charts through pre-orders alone. When excluding free games and hardware, it’s currently ranked at #5 globally, putting it above Dead by Daylight, Resident Evil Requiem, Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced and more. Even with free games included, it’s still in the top ten at #10.
The global top sellers chart on Steam is based on revenue, which makes it more impressive that Marathon has started its rollout so high on the chart – especially given its lower price point. Bungie has priced the game at $40/£35, which makes the game more financially accessible than other major releases with the industry standard $70 price tag. It’s also a strategic choice, as it lines up closer with the $40/£30 ARC Raiders, another extraction shooter which many are already positioning as the ‘rival’ to Marathon.
Marathon also offers a Deluxe Edition on Steam which bumps the price to $60/£50, and gives the player a bonus Midnight Decay cosmetics bundle for both Runners and weapons, along with a Premium Rewards Pass voucher and 200 SILK, a premium in-game currency.
We’re only six weeks away from the launch of Marathon, but the hype appears to be growing for Bungie’s newest release already. Being the first game the studio has released since being acquired by Sony, the pressure is on to deliver. Time will tell how the audience respond to Marathon‘s launch, but it’s off to a strong start commercially, which is sure to be a relief for Bungie given the slow and bumpy rollout that Marathon had early on.
