Marathon’s Server Slam spiked early then faded but still outpaced Battlefield and Call of Duty
Marathon’s public Server Slam began on Thursday as a pre-launch playtest ahead of the game’s March 5 release. Early activity was intense. Tens of thousands of players downloaded and jumped in while hundreds of thousands tuned in on streaming platforms.
Console PC Gaming tracked the Server Slam’s opening-day player surge in a separate item, noting the event hit more than 143,000 concurrent PC players on Steam in the first 24 hours here. That immediate momentum did not hold. Within about six hours the Steam peak fell by roughly 30,000 players, and by the following evening peak numbers were about half the initial high.
Numbers and viewership swings
SteamDB shows a 24-hour peak of 76,437 players for Marathon’s Server Slam on Steam. The same SteamDB charts page is available here. When ranked against other similar live Steam figures during the test window, Marathon’s 24-hour peak sat in this order:
- ARC Raiders – 227,765
- Apex Legends – 201,571
- Marathon – 76,437
- Battlefield 6 – 71,861
- Call of Duty – 52,575
- Escape from Tarkov – 19,220
- Destiny 2 – 11,623
Viewer counts on Twitch followed a similar pattern of big early interest and fast falloff. Marathon reached around 301,000 viewers in the opening hours and then climbed, with a streamer-led surge taking the peak to roughly 350,000 on Sunday March 1, according to TwitchTracker’s game page here. The highest Twitch viewership arrived near 7 PM GMT and then dropped to about 70,000 viewers by 10 PM GMT the same night.
The conversation around Marathon is mixed. Some players praise elements of the extraction-shooter loop. Others point to the same problems Bungie has been addressing in the Server Slam. Reported concerns include a complex UI, the absence of a PvP mode in the playtest, and optimization issues on PC. Marathon enters the market on March 5 and competes with recent entrants and steady performers in the extraction and shooter spaces, including ARC Raiders and Escape from Tarkov. The Dev team’s roadmap and the cadence of post-launch updates will shape how long the game holds player and viewer attention.
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Marathon
Developed by Bungie
A PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV, Marathon will see players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who have been designed to survive the planet’s harsh environments and explore the lost colony that once inhabited Tau Ceti’s surface. Players will engage solo or in crews of three, searching for mysterious alien artifacts, as well as for valuable loot and new weapons and gear that they can add to their collection.
- Genre: Shooter
- Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
- Modes: Multiplayer, Battle Royale
- Publisher: Bungie
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Age Rating:
GRAC 15+
