The Marathon Server Slam began yesterday, bringing in players from around the world on consoles and PC to test out Bungie’s latest shooter offering for free. Whilst it had peak right after launch of 143,000 concurrent players on Steam, a mixed reception online has seen this fall to less than half of what it was yesterday at the same time. Whilst this does not make any definitive statement about Marathon or its player base, it is a noteworthy decline.
Marathon‘s Server Slam player count peaked at 143,621 players yesterday at 19:50 UTC. We’re now 24 hours on from that at the time of writing, and the concurrent player count currently sits at around 69,000. This is a fall of 52%, which isn’t the most promising sign for the game given this is completely free to try, unlike the full game which will be a paid title. Again though, this is all early days for a project that has been in development at Bungie for years, and anything could change.
Feedback was mixed almost immediately following the release of the open beta for Marathon. Whilst there’s plenty of praise for the feeling of the gunplay or the art style, there are many criticisms coming from fans and Bungie newbies alike across social media, specifically targeting the UI, social features, difficult and resource availability.
As a live service and always online game, it’ll be very important to maintain a consistent player base in Marathon. Time will tell how the player base develops and grows – and we’ll be sure to report on it! For more breaking gaming news written for humans and by humans, be sure to check back often to GameObserver
