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With its incredibly expressive and vibrant art direction, there's a lot to like about the extraction shooter. Marathon from an aesthetic point of view. Its own brand of brightly colored sci-fi is a sight to behold, and there's a real sense of wonder in the first few hours as you explore each of the first three maps, taking it all in.
Review information
Revised platform: personal computer
Available in: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Release date: March 5, 2026
These solid fundamentals mean that Marathon It's a lot of fun when two friends join you in a full team, where the intense player versus player (PvP) encounters really shine. Unfortunately, the relentlessly arduous quests and lack of attractive cosmetic rewards, not to mention the rather threadbare current content offering, seriously limit the game's long-term potential.
With Steam player numbers gradually declining for weeks since the game's initial release, some major changes are needed if Marathon It's going to be more than a sprint.
Starting line
I am an optimist, since many of my biggest problems with Marathon have been addressed since launch. For example, the miserable inventory has been completely renovated. Why did small stacks of three medkits and 60 ammo (items needed in bulk for virtually every execution) originally take up most of the very limited spaces?
I'm not entirely sure, as presumably playtesters would have immediately highlighted this as an issue, but with your stacks increased to nine and 800 respectively, you're no longer spending minutes staring at the screen and selling your recently obtained gear to ensure you have enough space to start another match.
The difficulty of computer-controlled enemies has also been rebalanced, as the generic hostile robots that fill each map now don't need you to attach multiple magazines to them if you're unlucky enough to be discovered. The game still doesn't do a great job of communicating whether a hostile robot is carrying a super-powered shield (it seems like you need to manually ping each time to see that), but being able to reliably confront these threats head-on makes it much easier to get around each game.
The last major update also introduced Cryo Archive (launched on March 20, 2026), a massive, starry map filled with challenging combat gauntlets and countless hidden secrets to discover.
The best
I loved everything about MarathonThe aesthetics from its first trailer. The maps are stunning and have a variety of possible weather conditions that look great. Runner's shells are also attractive, with different designs that reflect his abilities.
Set on a ruined spaceship, it's a joy to explore and packed with high-end loot. However, it's only available on weekends, which feels like Bungie artificially shutting down content for no real reason other than to prevent players from finding everything it has to offer too quickly and then just going off to play something else.
It's a huge shame, especially when the three launch maps don't have much to offer. The perimeter, the initial map, is small and segmented with multiple blocking points that make encountering other teams practically a guarantee. As with other pull-out shooters, bullets are lethal here and the threat of tripping over others is exciting at first, but you'll quickly learn the layout like the back of your hand. The map is so small that more experienced players also like to go straight to key item locations for the first few missions, forcing newcomers to deal with frustrating campers.
It wouldn't be a big deal if you could advance more than one mission at a time, but you can't. They're also mostly boring fetch quests, and entering a map only to discover that what you need no longer exists leaves entire matches a complete waste of time.
faltering rhythm
The other two maps available, Dire Marsh and Outpost, are much better thanks to their larger sizes and more complex layouts, not to mention the fact that the later missions are a little less repetitive than the first ones. Don't be fooled by the scaling though, as you'll still encounter other teams almost constantly. Marathon It might be one of the most combat-heavy extraction shooters I've ever played, which is fun when you can coordinate with a team of friends, but invariably miserable if you choose to pair up with random players.
You can embody one of six Runner shells (synthetic bodies with their own distinctive personalities) plus the blank slate, Rook, just for solo play. None of the shell's heroic abilities are particularly imaginative (with its usual set of movement, stealth, reconnaissance, healing, and tanking powers), but they all work well and lead to some interesting combat scenarios.
In particular, I love playing Vandal, the movement hero, and using her super speed ability to flank entire teams. He's incredibly effective with a meaty shotgun in hand, plus a longer-range energy weapon to track down any enemies that try to flee.
When it all comes together, the moment-to-moment action can be incredibly fun, but after almost forty hours doing missions, I can't help but sit back and wonder what I'm doing all this for.
Bungie has already confirmed that your progress will be wiped every few months and only cosmetic unlocks will carry over. Unfortunately, the masks are completely tasteless and really not worth the time investment. This is doubly true for those in the paid battle pass (which is packed with basic weapon color changes and just a simplistic Runner skin) and the paltry variety offered in the in-game store.
Even with the addition of Cryo Archive, it's not like there are enough maps or modes (the game launched with just one) to keep me coming back for more, and I can't help but think that other players will inevitably feel the same way over time.
There is very little here compared to even free alternatives like Sand leak: infinitewhich looks a lot less impressive but has a lot more to do and, more importantly, it doesn't actually cost any money to enter. Hopefully, future updates will flesh out this beautiful game with some much-needed substance before it's too late.
Should I play Marathon?
Play if…
Don't play it if…
Accessibility features
Marathon It doesn't have a dedicated accessibility menu, but there are some useful options in its settings menus. On PC, the game can be played with keyboard and mouse or a controller, with the ability to completely rebind inputs in either control method.
There are four colorblind modes to choose from, which affect item rarity colors and HUD appearance. Subtitles are enabled by default and can be customized in size, color, and background style.
How I reviewed Marathon
I played almost 40 hours of Marathon on my PC, which is a model 5070 Ti from retailer Scan.
It has a compact Corsair 2000d RGB Airflow case, an Asus ROG Strix B860-I motherboard, an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor, a 2TB WD Black SN770 SSD, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM, and an Asus Nvidia 5070 Ti graphics card, which allowed me to play at 75 frames per second (fps) in the preset graphics mode plus. high with native resolution on my 1080p monitor. I rely on the Astro A20 X wireless gaming headset for my audio needs, including using its microphone when gaming with friends.
I played exclusively with my usual gaming mouse and keyboard: a Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro and a Cherry XTRFY K5V2.
Throughout my time with the game, I compared my experience to my hands-on testing of other extraction shooters, namely Escape from Tarkov and Sand leak: infinite, in addition to the broader first-person shooter genre.
First review in March 2026
