The upcoming reboot of Bungie's Marathon is generating significant anxiety among gamers, not just for its radical shift in genre but also for its newly announced price point. Revealed to cost £34.99 in the UK upon its release in March 2026, the premium price tag is drawing immediate and unfavourable comparisons to Sony's recent live service disaster, Concord.
A Premium Price for a Risky Pivot
Originally a niche single-player series, Marathon is being reimagined by Bungie as a live service extraction shooter. This move is seen as highly risky, especially given Sony's documented struggles in the live service arena. The game's gameplay reveal in April 2025 quickly led to comparisons with Concord, and poor responses to alpha playtests contributed to an indefinite delay from its original 2025 launch window.
Further turmoil hit Bungie with accusations of plagiarised artwork and reports of critically low studio morale, with insiders suggesting Marathon 'cannot afford' to fail. Despite Sony reportedly scaling back its live service ambitions by cancelling unannounced projects, the company remains committed to launching Marathon.
The Ghost of Concord's £34.99 Failure
The decision to price Marathon at £34.99 is particularly eyebrow-raising for industry observers. This is the exact price Sony set for Concord at its launch in 2024. While pricing was not the sole reason for Concord's catastrophic failure, it was widely considered a major barrier. The game sold a paltry estimated 25,000 copies in its first week, leading Sony to not only pull the plug on the game but also shut down its developer, Firewalk Studios.
By repeating the same price, Sony and Bungie appear to signal they do not believe the £34.99 tag was a primary factor in Concord's demise. They may be banking on Marathon's status as an established brand, though its original Mac-exclusive games are far from household names and share little DNA with this new team-based shooter.
An Uphill Battle for Player Trust
Bungie recently released a new video showcasing improvements made since the alpha, including reworked visuals, proximity chat, and a solo play option. Reception has been mixed; the upload on the PlayStation YouTube channel showed a nearly even split of roughly 4,100 likes to 4,000 dislikes at the time of writing.
While the game will have a wider release than Concord—coming to PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S—and will run a free preview weekend before launch, the premium cost inherently limits its potential player base. It also faces stiff competition from the popular extraction shooter Arc Raiders, which made a stronger initial impression.
The pressure on Bungie is immense. Sony has recently written off part of its $3.6 billion acquisition of the studio as a loss and acknowledged that Destiny 2 is underperforming. For Bungie, Marathon is not just another release; it is a crucial bid for redemption in a market that has already rejected Sony's previous premium live service experiment. All eyes will be on March 2026 to see if history repeats itself.
