The extraction shooter received a new wave of attention after the release of reviews from the specialized press.
The extraction shooter Marathon from Bungie was released on March 5, 2026. Even before the release, the studio asked journalists not to publish reviews until the key content appeared. This moment arrived on March 17 with the release of update 1.0.5.
The patch reworked the balance, added new mechanics and abilities, and also introduced the high-level location "Cryo Archive". Despite this, the game continued to lose ground on Steam and by March 26 had dropped to 77th place in the global sales charts.
The situation changed after March 27, when reviews from Western publications began to appear en masse online. Against this background, Marathon quickly regained its position: first it rose to 32nd place, then to 17th. At the time of publication, the game occupies 22nd place in the global Steam sales chart.
In recent days, the project has had no other significant news breaks other than the publication of reviews, which makes it possible to directly link the increase in interest to their release. Critics met the game with generally positive reviews. The PS5 version received 81 points on Metacritic based on 40 reviews, the PC version - 80 points after 33 reviews. User reviews on Steam are also "very positive" - 86% with almost 31 thousand reviews.
Thus, Bungie's strategy with the delayed publication of reviews could work as a tool to re-attract the audience after the release and shows that players still pay attention to press ratings.
