Bungie Announces Marathon Launches in March 2026 for $40 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 15 December 2025 / 6,291 Views
Bungies has announced the team-based extraction first-person shooter, Marathon, will launch for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in March 2026 for $39.99 / €39.99 / £34.99.
The price includes full access to the game and a roadmap of free gameplay updates throughout 2026. This includes new maps, new Runner shells, events, and more, starting with the exploration of UESC Marathon's Cryo Archive in Season 1.
View a new Bungie ViDoc on the game below:
Read details on the ViDoc below::
- New features since alpha, including...
- Proximity chat
- Solo queue
- Rook, a Runner shell used to scavenge matches in progress
- The world and fantasy of Marathon
- Ways we’re doubling down on the dark, gritty, and grounded sci-fi world
- Your role in Marathon–you are the Runner, and you transfer your consciousness into different shells designed with unique capabilities
- Improved visual fidelity and immersion, including...
- Dead Runners drop as corpses that decay over time
- Deepened environmental storytelling
- The role of audio
- Introduction to Marathon’s four zones (maps)
- Three surface zones–Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost
- The first zone on the UESC Marathon–Cryo Archive, an end-game challenge
- Loot and customization
- Weapons and mods, including ways to customize your gun in unique ways (like turning the Battery SMG into the Needler)
- Runner shell archetypes and ways to customize your playstyles
- Factions and progression
- Factions and the jobs they’ll ask you to do in game, like MIDA requesting you blow up a UESC dropship
- Faction upgrade trees and the capstone rewards you’ll earn each season
- The Codex, a collection of your achievements and narrative discoveries; progress to earn exclusive cosmetics and lore
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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DOA
The kind of deep, insightful commentary I've come to expect from you.
Don't ever talk to me again.
I'm not talking to you, I'm mocking your asinine comment.
Don't respond to me then. Fuck off forever.
I suspect I will respond to you at every possible opportunity from now on.
I disagree. From the beta, a lot of people enjoyed the game. Will it sell like Arch Raiders, probably not but then again it might not need to.
It's a $40 budget release, so expectations need to be aligned to that.
If they make a solid game which all indications say it is... It will sell decently, hopefully does well enough to allow bungie to garner continued support from Sony.
I totally agree and I also agree with big studios doing smaller more focused type of games. Everything do not need to be AAA cost 100 mill to make projects. I hope they see success and make and do more smaller focused games.
Looks promising
I've played multiple closed tests, the game is very good
Might pick it up on PC when it comes out. What have you liked about it?
The key quest design and faction progress is really good. The factions/corporations are all very interesting and the cutscenes connected to the progression are really stylish and high quality. There’s a lot of that very Bungie type of story telling where over-the-top visually stunning looking characters say pretty oblique and impenetrable things in a really cool way. Your mileage may vary on this and it’s not clear how far they’ll go with this in the full release. Might just be sideshow vignettes or there might be serious story progression told through them.
Core moment to moment gameplay is good. Gun handling, shooting, movement(it’s got a robust move set but a restrictive stamina system to kind of create a balance since extraction shooters are normally quite slow).
It’s. Very pvp focused game as is though, if you are into that then you will probably enjoy it. Maps are relatively small and dense and people get pushed into each other quite often(especially as people get the same quests in the same order, although this might be randomised by the full release as some of the quests became real meat-grinders).
The mystery and lore seem really interesting and the seasonal structure really gives a lot of options to explore that. I’m expecting maps to change, quests to change, new enemies, new secrets etc. as the game evolves over seasons, rather than just adding new maps all the time.
Wow. Thank you for taking the time to type this up. I'm definitely going to enjoy the smaller maps, I don't like running and running and running just to not find other players.
Extraction shooters aren't quite my vibe, but I do like the looks of Marathon. Seems like they are nailing the balance between action and strategy. Along with some dashes of cooperation.
Modern gaming has seasons. You get pieces of the game. Pieces. Not my cup of tea.
not to confident at $40, i guess take any money you can get at this point
I think its priced right. Just pricing everything 70 bones isn't smart. You need to know your audience and the right price point can mean everything.
2.1k dislikes. There's still something about it people really aren't liking. Maybe they should've done a GTA and had two different games for offline/online play.
Expected. The release period is so busy mind you.
