Marathon is Bungie's multiplayer extraction shooter, released on 5 March 2026 for PS5, Windows and Xbox Series X|S with cross-play and cross-save. It is a premium game priced at $39.99, not free-to-play. It revives the 1994 Marathon series and is set on Tau Ceti IV in the year 2893, where the colony and the UESC Marathon ship have gone silent after alien attacks and biological agents.
You play a Runner, a mercenary who uses a biocybernetic “shell”. Each match has you deploy, loot and exfiltrate. Items gathered in a failed run are lost, while items from a successful exfil carry over. Play is mainly player-versus-player, with AI enemies and hazards also present. You can queue solo or in three-player squads; from Season 2, duos are available on a single rotating map each day.
Critics were generally favorable: Metacritic lists 81 on PC and PS5 and 83 on Xbox Series X|S. Sales figures were not disclosed, and in September 2026 Bungie said the game had not met expectations and that it would expand beyond the extraction format.
Runners play as shells: Destroyer (tank), Assassin (stealth), Recon (intel), Vandal (mobility), Triage (medic), Thief (loot-and-run) and the scavenger Rook, per the Beebom shell list; Sentinel was added in Season 2 (Wikipedia).
Deploy, loot and exfiltrate. Items from a failed run are lost, while items from a successful exfil carry over.
Player-versus-player combat is the focus, with AI enemies and environmental hazards also present.
Full cross-platform play and cross-save across PS5, Windows and Xbox Series X|S.
Release facts, mechanics and boss details on this page were checked against these sources on 12 October 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.