The Marathon Server Slam is off to a quick start, with impressive player numbers on Steam.
As part of the Server Slam event, Bungie’s extraction shooter was made available to download for free across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S yesterday, February 26, allowing players to give it a shot over the weekend.
Marathon hit a peak of 143,621 concurrent players on Steam, although the true figure across all platforms will be higher (neither Microsoft nor Sony make player numbers public). And while the Server Slam is free and Marathon will cost $39.99 when it launches proper next week, the numbers do suggest significant interest.
Perhaps a useful comparison is to rival extraction shooter Arc Raiders, which went on to enjoy enormous success and huge sales after a similar server slam event ahead of launch and the same price point. Arc Raiders’ stress test hit a peak of 189,668 concurrent players on Valve’s platform. Marathon is behind that for now, but its peak number will surely grow as we head into the weekend and more people are available to play.
Already, Bungie has signalled it is gathering feedback from players, and said it will make updates during the Slam itself and “tie up any loose ends” ahead of launch on March 5. In a post on social media, Bungie outlined a number of bugs it’s working to fix, but perhaps of most interest is an acknowledgement of feedback on Marathon’s user interface.
If there’s one aspect of Marathon that has been roundly criticized, it’s the UI. Some players are saying they’re finding the icons of items unintuitive, and there’s too much visual clutter, which makes navigating the menus trickier than it should be.
“We’ve heard your thoughts and want to hear more!” Bungie said on the UI feedback, before pointing players to its Discord. It seems unlikely the developer will be able to make any meaningful change here before launch, but hopefully tweaks can be made sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, Bungie said it had received reports that PvP isn’t frequent enough overall. It offered some tips for players hoping to engage in PvP more often.
“Perimeter (Beginner) intentionally infils fewer Runners,” Bungie said. “Head to Perimeter and then Dire Marsh for a greater challenge. Additionally, the UESC are deadlier than you might think and will wipe you off the map (thus limiting the lobby’s PvP opportunities) if you let them swarm.”
The Marathon Server Slam ends at 10am PT on March 2, with rewards available for testing the servers.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
