Bungie’s upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, has been officially rated T for Teen by the ESRB. The rating comes just one day before the game goes live on Thursday, March 5, 2026. The T rating is due to the following factors: Language, violence, and animated blood.
Ahead of its release, Marathon experienced a server slam on Thursday, February 26. At its peak, 143,621 players were testing the game. Although that number quickly declined, Marathon still drew significant attention and outperformed titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6. Additionally, ARC Raiders viewership on Twitch hit an all-time low in the early hours of the Marathon Server Slam.
However, within six hours, the peak player count dropped by about 30,000. Of course, the beta test encountered some bugs and glitches, including issues the team here at Insider Gaming faced.
What to Expect from Marathon
With Marathon set to launch on March 5, it’s time to consider what to expect from the upcoming shooter. The first three seasons of the game provide a rough outline of what to expect. It’s already known that Season 2 will begin in June, be named Nightfall, and run through August, at which point Season 3 is expected to begin and run through November.
At the start of each season, all players will have their gear, contract progression, faction progression, and player level wiped. That’s right, each season is planned as a complete fresh start. Bear in mind that just because there’s an outline for up to three seasons doesn’t guarantee the game will resonate with players immediately.
Truthfully, this is a tough period for live service games. Highguard was featured prominently at the 2025 Game Awards and will shut down its servers one week after Marathon launches, having not even stayed online for two full months.
Amazon’s King of Meat is another example of a live service game with a short lifespan. That game had a major marketing campaign behind it and was hyped by multiple creators, including MrBeast. Even still, that game will be shutting down in April.
To learn more about the roadmap ahead for Marathon, click here. Insider Gaming will continue to provide coverage of the extraction shooter following its launch.
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