Marathon reportedly had a development budget of over $200m, and likely over $250m, not including ongoing development costs post-launch on game maintenance and new updates.
This comes from a new report from Forbes, where writer and Bungie beat reporter Paul Tassi spoke to sources who provided the figure, echoing prior estimates from industry analysts. These sources also confirmed that over 70 percent of players were on Steam were correct, aligning with analysis from roughly the last month.
As Tassi notes, peak player figures on Steam have dropped roughly 68 percent since the game’s launch. As of writing, the game’s 24 hour concurrent player peak is 26,913. The end game Cryo Archive activity hasn’t been able to grow this concurrent figure, which Tassi suggests is due to the overall difficulty of the game. This shouldn’t be a major surprise, given the evident embrace of intense difficulty from Marathon from minute one.
Indeed, the Cryo Archive map is an exceptionally challenging activity. With the greatest challenges in the game present there, and without solo queue available, it’s both the source of the most valuable loot and most devastating loses. As such, for those dedicated Marathon players enraptured with the game’s challenge, it’s a great source of fun. For those already struggling to overcome the game’s difficulty, it’s an even greater hurdle.
Still, it doesn’t look like the game is set to shutter any time soon, like prior ill-fated releases like Concord or Highguard. A relatively recent statement from Bungie developers said they’re in it for the long haul, and Tassi’s own reporting says morale at Bungie is better than it was during the pre-launch plagiarism fiasco. Fears around Marathon’s eventual closure lurk largely due to a combination of Sony’s history of game cancellations and wider live service perils.
He wrote: “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.”
Still, even with these staggering triple-A development costs, the game remains a high quality experience for those will to take the leap and try it out. As Eurogamer noted in our Marathon review: “With spellbinding combat and high-concept maps, Marathon is far more than a cool aesthetic draped over the bones of an extraction shooter.”