Marathon's launch didn't meet expectations? First-month sales were only around 1.2 million copies.

According to estimates by analyst Rhyss Elliott of Alinea Analytics, Bungie 's extraction shooter, Marathon, sold approximately 1.2 million copies across all platforms in its first month. Steam accounted for nearly 70% of that, while PS5 and Xbox accounted for about 19% and 11% respectively. This achievement is considered quite unusual for a Sony first-party IP and falls far short of the 12 million copies sold for Arc Raiders.

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Elliott attributes the lower-than-expected sales to the UI, describing it as a "harsh filter": "Players only need 30 minutes to understand the gameplay loop of Arc Raiders, while Marathon's UI frustrates them before they even get to the depth of the game." However, he still praised the game's core, calling it a "masterpiece" design. Despite a less-than-explosive launch, player engagement has been remarkable. On Steam, the average playtime has reached 27.8 hours, with 22% of players exceeding 50 hours and nearly 7% playing over 100 hours. The daily active player count currently stands at around 345,000.

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However, given Bungie's high development costs and Destiny 2's declining player base, the 1.2 million copies sold in the first month may still not be enough to be considered a hit as Sony and Bungie had hoped.