Bungie's Marathon Budget Tops $200 Million, and Cryo Archive Map Didn’t Increase Player Count

Marathon's development cost exceeded $200 million — likely more than $250 million — and player numbers on Steam have dropped 68 percent since launch, according to sources familiar with the project. As of this writing, the game's 24-hour concurrent peak is 26,913, down from an 88,337 peak on launch day and a 143,621 peak during the pre-launch free server slam.

A Forbes report by Paul Tassi, who covers Bungie as a beat reporter, confirmed the budget figure through direct sources and also verified analyst estimates placing over 70 percent of Marathon's playerbase on Steam. Analyst firm Alinea estimated around 1.2 million copies sold across all platforms roughly two weeks post-launch, with a 478,000 daily active user count that first weekend, a figure that has since dropped to 345,000. Those numbers are themselves two weeks old.

The game currently holds an 82 Metacritic score on PS5, raised from the high 70s as additional critic reviews arrived. GameSpot, IGN, Game Informer, and PC Gamer each scored it a 9 or above. Steam user reviews sit at 88 percent positive. The PlayStation average is 4.54 out of 5 stars. Average playtime on Steam stands at 28 hours, with 22 percent of players past 50 hours and 7 percent past 100 — numbers that point to a smaller but committed core rather than a broad audience.

Bungie's final public beta for Marathon, called the Server Slam, pulled 143,621 peak concurrent players on Steam within its first 24 hours. The test ran free-to-play across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox through March 2, ahead of the game's March 5 release. The Steam figure covers only a fraction of total participation, as console numbers are not tracked in that count.

The Cryo Archive map launched on March 20 as the game's ultra-endgame activity. The concurrent player spike it generated barely exceeded a typical weekend increase. The map holds Marathon's hardest encounters and most valuable loot, but requires a full squad — no solo queue is available. I think that barrier shuts out exactly the players most likely to drop the game. At the moment, they most need a reason to stay.

Marathon did not chart inside Steam's top 10 at launch. It currently sits 78th in daily active users on Steam, 82nd in top sellers, and 106th among the most-played games on Xbox. Sony has not publicly addressed whether the title is meeting internal targets, and no earnings call has referenced it. The budget context is not a minor detail: this project employed hundreds of employees for roughly half a decade, and it sits at the center of Sony's live-service push.

Several post-launch problems have required patches. RNG drops tied to Cryo Archive completions were removed. The Compiler boss drops a weapon that remains overpowered after one nerf and will likely be adjusted again. Cheating has escalated at higher ranks, where a loss strips not just a match but a full loadout. Bungie has moved on these fixes at roughly ten times the pace it managed for Destiny in recent years — a point noted positively by players still active in the game.

What keeps that playerbase engaged is specific. The gunplay retains Bungie's design, adjusted but recognizable. The hero kits, which drew skepticism ahead of launch, have not underdelivered. Outpost and Cryo Archive combine puzzle design with a raid-style boss — a structure with no real precedent in the extraction shooter genre. Players running consistent squads report strong sessions. I see a game that built something structurally different, then placed it in a genre where one unlucky run costs an entire evening's investment.

The game has avoided the worst outcome. Concord shut down within two weeks of launch. Highguard followed. Marathon, a month in, remains live, patched, and actively staffed.

"On Bungie's end, there is less panic than when the game was flailing with multiple controversies last summer. They are mostly heads-down, working on new content, and whatever the case may be, this is not a game that is about to face some sort of imminent shutdown. And these days, that's enough to qualify as a win."

— Paul Tassi

Whether 1.2 million copies sold and a narrowing concurrent count constitute a win by Sony's internal metrics is a different question, and one that won't be answered publicly until an earnings call where Marathon may or may not be mentioned.

In EGW's guide on which Marathon faction is best, the site covers all six factions — CyberAcme, Sekiguchi, MIDA, Traxus, Arachne, and NuCaloric — and breaks down how each one's contracts and reward structure suits different playstyles. For players still in early progression, the guide identifies which faction offers the most direct path to survivability and which ones scale better once the game's systems open up.