Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon has slumped hard. Its concurrent Steam player count has fallen below 1,000 on multiple occasions, a far cry from the 88,337 peak it hit right after launching on March 5, 2026. Right now the game sits around 3,000 concurrent players on Steam, with recent 24-hour peaks in the same low range. That is more than a 96 percent drop from launch.
Meanwhile Destiny 2, the game Bungie decided to abandon, keeps pulling in far more players. Even after the studio ended live-service support with the Monument of Triumph update in June 2026, Destiny 2 still sees 20,000 to 25,000 concurrent players on Steam most days, with peaks that have topped 167,000. The older title continues to thrive while the new one struggles to hold an audience.
Bungie Killed Destiny 2 for This
Bungie made a clear choice. It wound down Destiny 2, a franchise that built a massive, loyal community over more than a decade, and shifted resources to Marathon. The result is an extraction shooter that sold roughly 1.1 to 1.2 million copies but failed to keep people playing. Steam made up the bulk of that audience, yet the concurrent numbers collapsed within months. Season 2 and a free week in June gave a short-lived bump to about 40,000, then the players left again. By July the game was dipping under 1,000 concurrent on Steam. Off-peak figures later hovered near 1,100 to 1,500.
This is what happens when a studio walks away from a proven game and bets everything on a mediocre replacement. Marathon has the Bungie gunplay and sci-fi setting, but it lacks the depth, systems, and long-term reasons to stay that Destiny 2 delivered for years. Players paid $40 and then moved on. Destiny 2 players, even without new content, keep logging in because the game still offers raids, activities, and a living world that Marathon has never matched.
A Clear Failure of Judgment
The numbers do not lie. Destiny 2’s all-time Steam peak sits near 316,750. Its post-support player base remains healthy and consistent. Marathon’s trajectory is the opposite: rapid decline, weak retention, and an inability to compete even against the game it was supposed to succeed. Bungie ended support for a title that still outperforms its shiny new project by a wide margin. That decision looks worse every time Marathon’s concurrent count ticks lower.
Steam data only shows the PC side, yet it is the clearest public measure available. On that measure, Bungie dropped a thriving live-service game and replaced it with one that cannot hold 1,000 players at its lowest points. The studio’s focus shift has left players with a failing extraction shooter while the abandoned Destiny 2 keeps proving it was the better product all along.
What the Numbers Reveal
Marathon’s early sales and launch numbers looked decent on paper. The sustained engagement never arrived. Destiny 2, left to run on existing content, continues to draw crowds that Marathon can only envy. Bungie’s choice to sunset one and push the other has produced an obvious mismatch. The older game still thrives. The new one is struggling to stay relevant.