Bungie's upcoming Marathon is walking off a Cliff

With Marathon launching in just three weeks, the general consensus online is already smelling a flop. People point to the scandals, the development hell, the layoffs, and the drama. But honestly? That’s not even the main reason this game is dead on arrival.

The reason is simple maths and market timing.

Bungie lost the race back in October:
Nexon and Embark have been doing victory laps this week, and the numbers for ARC Raiders are genuinely insane. We are talking 14 million copies sold and millions of weekly active players. Despite its issues, ARC has cemented itself as the market leader.

This creates an insurmountable wall for Bungie: the First Mover advantage.

Think about the logic here. You have a squad of friends who bought ARC Raiders, ground out the battle pass, bought skins, and invested hundreds of hours getting powerful. Are they really going to drop all that progress, just to pay another £35 box price to start from zero in a game that plays almost exactly the same only just 5 months later? No chance.

If your group is playing ARC, you aren’t jumping to Marathon by yourself. The genre is winner-takes-all, and the winner has already been crowned while Bungie was still fixing their mess.

Zero friction vs. Maximum friction:
If Marathon was Free-to-Play, maybe people would try it out of curiosity. But it’s not. They are asking for an upfront payment to enter a game that looks arguably less appealing than the one people already own.

And let’s talk about that appeal. ARC Raiders stuck to a grounded, retro aesthetic that you can see your character wear. Marathon? They decided to make the heroes abstract, weird, and frankly, unappealing. There is no fan service, no "cool factor", and definitely no costume appeal. In a live service game where fashion pays the bills, who is buying skins for a faceless geometric shape in an FPS? That’s right, it’s an FPS so you can’t really see your character’s bought skin to validate your purchase either. And because it’s a tense extraction shooter, you don’t get the silly ‘skin showoff moments’ like from Overwatch.

We just watched Sony’s Concord crash and burn for the exact same character design issue, and apparently, Bungie didn’t learn a damn thing. They are relying on an old IP that most modern gamers don't know, assuming the name alone carries weight.

The "Bungie Pedigree" is a myth now:
Their only selling point is "we used to make Halo". That’s it. Because if you look at their current resume, it’s just them running Destiny 2 into the ground. They have one of the worst reputations in the industry right now for managing a live service. Destiny is a toxic asset, bleeding players and revenue, yet it’s the only thing keeping the lights on at their massive, expensive studio.

The £2.8 billion (3.6bn USD) mistake:
This is where the reality checks in. Sony bought Bungie for billions to teach PlayStation how to do live service. Instead, Bungie is missing financial targets by as much as 45% and losing money hand over fist.

A "niche" success isn't enough. For a studio of that size, with that price tag, Marathon needed to be atleast, the next Apex or Valorant. But because they let ARC Raiders eat their lunch, the best they can hope for is a small, dedicated player base. That doesn't pay the bills for a studio with Bungie’s bloat.