Steam reviews praise Marathon while Reddit warns of "punishing" gameplay

Bungie’s Marathon has started well on Steam. Valve’s store page lists the extraction shooter as released on March 5, 2026, and at the time of writing, it shows a “Very Positive” English review rating, with 15,372 English reviews and 19,225 reviews overall. That gives Bungie a solid topline result, but the player conversation underneath it is much more divided than the aggregate score suggests.

Steam says “Very Positive,” but the conversation is not one-note

The easiest way to describe the launch reaction is that players seem to like Marathon’s core feel more than they like its onboarding. On Steam, one user review simply says, “Good so far,” which fits the broader early mood: players are responding well to the gunfeel and basic loop, but many are clearly waiting to see whether Bungie can smooth out rough edges before goodwill fades. On the Steam Community side, another lengthy post says “the game is fun, and the loop is plenty engaging,” while also warning about the risk that comes with live-service games.

That split matters because Marathon is not trying to be a relaxed shooter. Bungie’s own Steam store description calls it a “PvPvE survival extraction FPS,” and the page emphasizes finite supplies, exfiltration, stronger builds earned through successful runs, and zones that escalate in difficulty. In other words, friction is part of the design. The problem for new players is not that the game is tense; it is that many of them do not think it teaches that tension especially well.

Reddit praise is real, but so are the complaints

Reddit reflects that same split. Positive posts are easy to find. One thread titled “This is my most anticipated game in a while” says the latest tech test made “everything about this game seem awesome” and praises the art style. Another asks, “Am I the only one that wants this game to succeed?” and includes replies calling the game’s look “amazing,” saying Bungie’s gunfeel should carry over, and arguing that the most negative voices are louder than they are representative. A third post says people trying to hate the game are “getting boring” and describes Marathon as something the poster “genuinely cannot wait” to play.

But Reddit is also where many of the clearest complaints are being articulated. One of the most direct threads is titled, “The UI/icons are so bad,” with the poster complaining that they have to hover over items to understand what they are seeing. Another thread argues the game “won’t survive” if the community keeps mocking casual players and dismissing UI and difficulty complaints as “skill issues,” adding that the game is “extremely vague in explaining itself.” A third says the number of people “struggling with the basic mechanics” is “mind-boggling,” then immediately turns that into a lesson about ammo economy and picking fights rather than taking every engagement. Put together, those posts show the same core issue from different angles: Marathon has depth, but a lot of people do not think it explains itself clearly enough at first.

Bungie’s own guidance shows the friction is not imagined

Bungie’s own launch guidance unintentionally reinforces that point. In its official “Marathon Starter Tips” post, the studio tells players to bring “plenty of ammo and healing items” because they “won’t find a lot in-run,” to keep an eye out for ammo crates instead of just loose ammo, and to conserve ammo by knifing low-level enemies. Those are practical tips, but they also underline how easy it is for inexperienced players to run dry, waste resources, or misread what the game expects from them.

Bungie also appears to know that the first few hours need help. In a Steam Community launch update, the studio said it increased the distance at which objective navigation points appear from 10 meters to 20 meters, increased the number of med cabinets and munitions crates that can spawn on Perimeter, and increased starting ammo in several free sponsored kits. Those are not cosmetic tweaks. They are targeted changes to clarity and survivability, which suggests Bungie is already reacting to exactly the problems players have been raising on Reddit and Steam.

The real issue is not difficulty alone

That is why the early user response to Marathon is more interesting than a simple review score. Plenty of players clearly think Bungie has something here. Steam’s review average is strong, Reddit has a visible contingent defending the game’s art direction and promise, and even skeptical players often concede that Bungie still knows how to make a shooter feel good. At the same time, the criticism is not just random launch-week noise. Much of it is specific, repeated, and practical: confusing UI, rough onboarding, pressure on casual players, and a skill floor that can feel hostile before the systems click.

Right now, Marathon looks like a game that is succeeding with the audience most prepared to meet it on its own terms. The bigger question is whether Bungie can make that audience broader without flattening what makes the game distinct. If the studio continues to improve readability, resource pacing, and early-match clarity, the current difficulty could become part of the game’s identity in a good way. If not, the same traits that hardcore players see as depth may keep reading to newcomers as friction.