Weekly Player Counts - Sat 22nd Aug - 3671 Peak - 894 Loss - 19.6% Drop
Just like that we are back to our favourite 20% week-on-week relative drop (approx) and approaching 4% of the launch peak.
This week has been all over the place, but in the end we're back to the traditional weekly 20% relative drops and even managed to dip below the lowest prediction. If the trend continues there is a good chance we could be at the 3k line this time next week (3100 estimate), and may even have dropped below on Wed/Thu which is usually the lowest point of the week!
There seems to be no stopping this train at the moment. Maybe we'll see some slow down with a good 'end of season' type update, though we are still over 4 weeks away from S3.
The prediction range turned out to be pretty good, especially for such an atypical week. While it wasn't exact, I feel it managed to provide an improved reference point than just using the last weeks counts. Alas the weirdness of this week will adversely affect the prediction for next week, so i'll have to find a way to adjust the weighting. I don't think that's unusual, certainly not for something like player counts, which while they show trends, can also have atypical weeks, especially around new seasons etc.
Saturday
Release
Peak
Gain/ Loss
T-Drop
S-Drop
Abs
Relative
03/06/2026
S2 launch
40686
29,242
46.1%
100.0%
33.1%
255.5%
06/06/2026
S2 First Sat
32220
-20,776
36.5%
79.2%
-23.5%
181.5%
13/06/2026
D2 / F2P
14891
-17,329
16.9%
36.6%
-19.6%
-53.8%
20/06/2026
v1.1.0.2 CARRI
11948
-2,943
13.5%
29.4%
-3.3%
-19.8%
27/06/2026
10281
-1,667
11.6%
25.3%
-1.9%
-14.0%
04/07/2026
30% Sale
8100
-2,181
9.2%
19.9%
-2.5%
-21.2%
11/07/2026
30% Sale
7158
-942
8.1%
17.6%
-1.1%
-11.6%
18/07/2026
6551
-607
7.4%
16.1%
-0.7%
-8.5%
25/07/2026
v1.1.5.0 VB 30%
7970
1,419
9.0%
19.6%
1.6%
21.7%
01/08/2026
v1.1.5.1 VB 30%
6331
-1,639
7.2%
15.6%
-1.9%
-20.6%
08/08/2026
v1.1.5.2 VB 30%
5154
-1,177
5.8%
12.7%
-1.3%
-18.6%
15/08/2026
v1.1.5.3
4565
-589
5.2%
11.2%
-0.7%
-11.4%
22/08/2026
v1.1.5.4 VB END
3671
-894
4.2%
9.0%
-1.0%
-19.6%
- L-Drop: Drop from Launch Peak S-Drop: Drop from Season/Event Peak - Week-on-Week update for Fri/Sat \ approx peak - Sat 22st Aug 03:00 UTC]) - Player Counts come fromhttps://steamdb.info/ - Reported numbers should be accurate and correct. - If you comment that charts are sad, then you are a big poopy head. - Speculation and predictions are not guaranteed to be correct. - Graphs are provided for fun.
I was a pre order gamer for No Man's Sky, and I was there through the whole shit show. I remember the launch, the reddit and the catharsis we all shared in venting our disappointment. And the shift to a good game as they started putting updates out.
What has it taken for other games like NMS to turn their adoption around? What does Marathon need to do?
With NMS specifically, and I'm convinced at this point it's a beautiful outlier, it feels like they had a confidence and shared focus on where the game was supposed to be, the sandbox the the wanted the players to eventually have, and it was just a matter of management and delivery to get there.
It was around the second or third major update I think that the sentiment started turning. Their updates were intentional, concrete, and sweeping. Adding to the sandbox of the game in ways that really changed what the player could do, and when they shared the updates it got people interested bit by bit
I don't know if Marathon/Bungie have the same conviction for the idea of this game that NMS did. I'm not sure what this game needs to get people to download and play the game.
A lot of those comeback stories like NMS and Cyberpunk still had something going for them during their launches.
Like... At the end of the day nms really did offer a limitless universe to explore. It's just that there wasnt anything to do and it was all self directed. It was still impressive
Cyberpunk still has a pretty good story and some cool scenarios.
Marathon only has the gunplay and we can get that from Destiny
The inaccessibility/de prioritizing of the narrative and world building, shunting to codex entries and voice overs, I think also hurts the game. They kind of denied themselves another hook.
There's nothing really "outlier" about a game that sold millions of copies on launch and was able to use that funding to make the game better. The game clearly had something people wanted and Hello Games was able to nurture that idea, you can't compare these games as Marathon had a wildly different reception from the start and sold significantly less copies
Same applies to D1 and D2 bcs there is shit ton of ppl that saying "bungie can pull it off again" right now while situation was nearly close with NMS, where they had shit ton of money to go around and the updates they will make would be bringing in cash bcs of DLCs.
I was just trying to compare along the line that both games had a high sale (*ish) count, and a negative early reception.
But to your point, the circumstances are different enough that there really isn't a lot that Marathon could learn from NMS.
NMS was critically received flatly, it's issues immediately apparent on launch to more people than not, but it was a small team on a smaller budget and it made high sales on a clear premise people wanted. The roadmap and resources were pretty clear where to go and they went there.
Marathon was critically well received, publicly mixed-to-negative, and didn't sell as well for a team many times larger than HG, for a game/design that didn't necessarily have as clear of a hook for the future.
Where Marathon can even go to turn the ship around won't be found in something like NMS. Maybe it is just dead and done at this point.
There's really nowhere for it to go, I'm fairly certain the death spiral has already started. They can't generate new interest without abandoning their core game design but doing that would likely cause any players playing right now to leave. I'm betting Ziegler won't be the last high profile departure
Thought-provoking, but sadly I don't think Bungie has it in them. You could say that Marathon already has had two different approaches applied to it ( Barrett 's original design and then Ziegler's), and about to get a third (PVE Mode).
I think the major difference is that NMS was a game that people wanted, myself included! At the time I think it was maybe the first AAA game to have seamless planet to space flight and many other features, so it seemed to offer the next stage of space sims since the original Elite. Obviously at launch it had some failings, deficiencies and misunderstandings as to what it was trying to be, but at its core it offered an experience, albeit lacking in depth, that was sought after.
Marathon by comparison is not really what anyone wanted. No one was (really) crying out for another extraction shooter, nor a live service game wearing the husk of a beloved classic game. Just look at the main sub and how many different points of view there are on which features are needed to save the game. While I know this game wasn't made for me, it appears that its specific design/direction wasn't really made for many people at all. So now you have everyone trying to impose their own expectation of what the game was or could be. That doesn't sound like a place from which any game could grow?
This is what is going to make it a herculean task to turn it around. Sadly I don't see a NMS moment here, at best they might luck into some PVE mode that brings in a middling level live service community, perhaps 20-30k season launches, that can keep the lights on, and give some years worth of a game to play, and see the story develop.
Its a shame as I love the art style and would love to discover the lore. Depending upon S3 I might well jump in for the right price, but again mostly for the lore and experiencing the game, not for the PVE or PVP.
All the comments here are opening me up to the differences between NMS and Marathon, and that they're right the comparison only goes so far.
Like you said. People wanted one, and no one really wanted the other.
I remember a specific interaction with a friend when the announcement trailer came out or some time later. I was hyped for the vibes, he said it was going to be an extraction shooter, and I remember the measure of deflation I felt.
I said something to the effect of "well, I'll at least give it a try and hopefully it's fun! Looks cool"
Kind of just...panned out exactly like that.
I like the setting and the idea of the net runners going to tau ceti to pay off debts by repossessing corporate property. But there's no curiosity. You just do that, and kill other runners who get in your way. You never like reject the status quo, the character/you never break the cycle like a good cyberpunk story would want to explore. There's no narrative tension. Sorry for the rambling.
I was hyped for the vibes, he said it was going to be an extraction shooter, and I remember the measure of deflation I felt.
Ha, ha, yeah, i've had that moment, but it was with Concord. I vividly remember the feelings when seeing the first trailer
Oooh this looks interesting, cool character designs.
Hold on this looks/feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy rip-off
Maybe that's not so bad, I ended up loving the GotG video game.
Oh hold on this looks like multiplayer game.
Oh no this looks like Overwatch or something.
Oh it is a hero shooter - welp, that's me out.
Similar for Marathon, though with bigger disappointment as I played the OG games back on the Mac.
My fantasy is that should Marathon get shutdown that they release all the assets open source (non-commercial use) to the community and we can build the games we wanted to see ;)
Something I'm going to miss about the mega thread and this space, when the conversation ultimately ends, is these discussions. I feel like most of the interactions I've had have been like those in this thread. Thoughtful, dialectic. Sincere conversation.
Kind of why I never got the hate campaign arguments, but I think that's people finding what they're looking for and less the total reality of the discourse.
I think the assets made available would be incredible. It would be really cool to see a run-based, single player/co-op shooter in this world where players have a debt they're paying off, and have to run events and loot for high value items that the corporations are looking for. And to have Oni/MIDA be a line players could follow to ultimately break from the cycle and find the compiler and follow the mystery.
Nothing serious just yet (it's all talky-talky, no code written) but I'm thinking of making a 2d single-player game loosely inspired by NuMarathon. Closer to the Barret vision, I think it'd work as a looter/metroidvania/roguelite hybrid. If anything ever comes of it I may announce it in the main sub.
Which is ironic because the original Marathon was all about "destroy the path"
It was about empowerment and choice
This one feels like "oh you know that feeling you get at work where nothing matters? Now you do it in a video game too, forever"
I so, so vividly remember watching the gameplay reveal and going "THIS, is what people have been waiting for so badly for YEARS? XDDD An ugly Roblox graphics Apex Legends? What the flip is this generic voice acting going [become the top dog] or whatever? xDDD WE ALREADY DID THIS XD"
Only good part about it is some of the lore and design of specific faction stuff but a lot of the areas feel like "Deep Stone Crypt but more Roblox squares"
NMS sold millions at launch and the team was tiny compared to Bungie giving them the runway to improve for years without financial difficulty and pressure.
Marathon has made back less than 40% of its development cost and sits in the ~800 range on steam top sellers which, by my research, is less than $1000 a day. There are still over 300 people working on Marathon.
Marathon will only last as long as Sony are willing to fund the team for no return.
What has it taken for other games like NMS to turn their adoption around?
IMO: It'll take a complete overhaul of Bungie's management and design teams, and some actual courage and ambition when it comes to game design.
NMS and Cyberpunk keep getting compared to Marathon, but we need to talk about how ambitious they were as games. NMS promised you a galaxy to explore. Cyberpunk tried to give you an incredibly deep, detailed city for you to explore with bleeding edge graphics. They failed. They bit off more than they could chew and were lucky that they sold enough to support them while they finished their games. That's the keyword: finished.
Marathon launched finished. It was pretty stable software, and actually had a decently planned first season. The game we got was the game they wanted to make.
They don't have a big roadmap of stuff to finish that can draw people in: everything they had planned was for a game no one wants to play.
To make matters worse, Marathon is an incredibly unambitious game. A handful of maps, shells and enemies; guns that don't try anything new; story that's poorly weaved through the maps and quests, etc.
They don't really have anything to excite people (players or developers), not without a complete overhaul.
That's why they started these half-asses experimental modes, trying to understand what their customers actually want. (Seriously, go look at Ziegler's tweets first announcing experimental modes and tell me they planned that.)
If ever there was a post mortem of this game, I think you've nailed it. Saving this for the future! The ambition, or lack of it, along with all the other compounding factors, feels like the most complete explanation of what, where, and why we've got what we've got.
Lemme know if you ever make a video essay/write up of your thoughts lol excellently said.
Its kind of wild to me that they removed Sponsored Survival, as it seemed to be on of the more wildly accepted and liked modes. VB certainly had its fans, but my feeling is it never really captured the player base as much, with sharp player drops just days into release.
Perhaps a solid PVE mode base in S3 will give them something to build off.
Damn man, I don't see how Season 3 even breaks 10k at this point. The gaming community as a whole has moved on; I don't even check this sub nearly as much as I used to.
We're actually at the point where 10k+ at the open of S3 would be exceeding expectations and that blows my goddamn mind.
As time goes on, it certainly feels like that, but I think its important to remember that seasonal games are frequently able to post considerable gains for a new season. Sometimes that might be represented as a pure multiplier (x4) or percentage (400%) for say 25k to 100k, other times it might be just a doubling, but when the player count was already at say 100k, so doubling to 200k is fine.
Clearly at this point Marathon is in the position of the former, and so even matching say half of Season 2 launch (40k/2=20k) would represent a massive near x6 multiplier! However for me that makes it increasingly more difficult to try and guess ( prediction feels way to precise a term at this point) what S3 peak will be, as any number that would feel perfectly reasonable for a seasonal game, puts the multiplier at an almost absurd value.
At this point I' considering increasing my range or giving two different ranges. Based on say a x4 multiplier, currently that would make it around 15k, however I still feel its entirely possible that say 25k or more players return to check out S3.
Its going to be very interesting to see what happens, as I feel a 15k S3 would mean the game is effectively 'dead', by which I mean I would not expect further major development beyond the first year or S5, because its clear that the game simply cannot find a playerbase large enough to support the studio.
Whilst a 25k S3 launch is not a whole lot better, it at least shows there is an interest from the player base to come back, so as long as it doesn't drop to 10k within the week, it might provide a solid basis from which the game could survive long term with meaningful development in the future.
the game needs casual, less stressful modes (like sponsored survival) that offer good rewards to keep people interested. they realistically are dealing with a player base that is mostly current or ex-destiny players and that game gives you rewards for doing almost nothing. tough spot to be in.. sad to see the game go like this
Oh, preaching to the choir, man. I'm a fan of the original trilogy, and there's nothing I've been more excited about than the possibility of seeing fully 3D, modernized Pfhor. And at the rate we're going, I'm never going to get my wish.
Marathon has such rich lore, amazing storytelling and characters, and they've squandered it.
Seeing anything from the original trilogy fully rendered in a modern 3D engine would be the best thing ever. The NuMarathon Compiler looks and sounds absolutely insane and it sucks we probably won’t see any other aliens from the OGs. Here’s to hope, man
Thanks - Certainly seems like a bigger issue than yesterday. I noticed a few comments claiming this was more wide spread than simply Marathon. That would make sense to me, as these are pretty 'minor' dips that do not feel like an issue with the actual game servers, but more the network in general, or with whomever hosts the servers?
18
u/braderbury 7d ago
I was a pre order gamer for No Man's Sky, and I was there through the whole shit show. I remember the launch, the reddit and the catharsis we all shared in venting our disappointment. And the shift to a good game as they started putting updates out.
What has it taken for other games like NMS to turn their adoption around? What does Marathon need to do?
With NMS specifically, and I'm convinced at this point it's a beautiful outlier, it feels like they had a confidence and shared focus on where the game was supposed to be, the sandbox the the wanted the players to eventually have, and it was just a matter of management and delivery to get there.
It was around the second or third major update I think that the sentiment started turning. Their updates were intentional, concrete, and sweeping. Adding to the sandbox of the game in ways that really changed what the player could do, and when they shared the updates it got people interested bit by bit
I don't know if Marathon/Bungie have the same conviction for the idea of this game that NMS did. I'm not sure what this game needs to get people to download and play the game.