Marathon is Bungieâs next big multiplayer blockbuster and its first live-service launch as part of PlayStation. The game hails from a genreâextraction shootersâthatâs never been for the faint of heart but from a big-budget studio that doesnât do anything on the cheap. So how much will Marathon cost when it comes out in the fall? Bungie isnât saying, yet.
Todayâs big gameplay reveal showcase for the sci-fi successor to the â90s FPS trilogy gave us a September 23 release date and a good overview of what will set Bungieâs take on the hardcore PvPvE genre apart. But how many people will show up at launch for the studio behind Halo and Destiny? Marathonâs price will be a big factor there. The Sony-owned company still hasnât said what the game will cost but it doesnât sound like it will be free.
âThe kicker here is that Marathon is going to launch as a premium product, meaning players will be asked to pay full price,â reports GameSpotâs Tamoor Hussain, who recently went hands-on with the shooter. âBased on what I experienced and was told, itâll have a battle pass, three maps (with a fourth arriving shortly after launch); fun but no-frills gameplay; a story that currently is all very vague in its nature and unclear in its implementation; and a character-progression system that doesnât yet show signs of offering a meaningful sense of growth.â
Marathon will be a premium title. Marathon will not be a âfull-pricedâ title.
Weâll announce details this Summer. https://t.co/mbK1vfFLKo
â Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) April 12, 2025
Charging $7o for whatâs described above, as Forbesâ Paul Tassi notes, seems out of the question, and Bungie later clarified that it wonât be doing that stating, âMarathon will not be a full-priced title.â The most obvious guess from there is that Marathon will be $40. That seems to be the popular new hedge for premium games that need to reach a massive audience. That previously rumored number is what Helldivers 2 was priced at last year. Itâs also $10 less than what Bungie charged for Destiny 2âs big The Final Shape expansion that same year.
But $40 is also what Sony charged for Concord, the infamously failed hero shooter that so few people played that it was retroactively unreleased and fully refunded within two weeks of launch. A big talking point around that game was whether it would have had a better chance if it had been free-to-play, or at least free with PlayStation Plus. Itâs impossible to know now, but that question will seemingly haunt every new live-service shooter releasing in Concordâs wake
At the same time, Bungie has never given its games away for free before. Even Destiny 2, which currently has a free version, locks most of its content, especially newer stuff, behind a premium paywall. And most fans can understand why. Games like Destiny 2, or Marathon for that matter, donât come cheap. With blockbusters like Spider-Man 2 needing to sell over 7 million copies just to break even, microtransaction shops alone are unlikely to pay the bill unless your live-service game becomes a Marvel Rivals-sized hit overnight. And honestly, Marathon is looking a little too hardcore for that at the moment.
But unlike Destiny 2, Marathon is a PvPvE game seemingly without anything in the way of a traditional story-based campaign. Itâs already working from within the confines of a more niche genre. In a world where most other PvP games are free-to-play, charging anything might be one step too far when it comes to getting players on the sidelines to come in and check out the newest project from the studio responsible for their favorite college dorm Halo 3 party back in the day.
Bungie and Sony are likely banking on that lingering brand power to get people to show up on day one. Whether itâs enough to also get them to pay is another thing entirely.
