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Krafton shutters free-to-play PUBG spin-off after two months, in line with policy of using Early Access to "quickly validate a game’s potential"
Company abandons top-down shooter after two months of declining player counts, despite franchise delivering record revenues
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
PlayStation Closes Shooter Studio Formed By Former Call Of Duty Lead
Dark Outlaw Games grew out of the ashes of another failed Sony project
Marathon has sold 1.2M copies across Steam, PS5, and Xbox
Alinea Analytics estimates show that Marathon has generated gross revenues of $55M via 1.2M copies sold on Steam, PS5, and Xbox: Looking at the split between Steam, PS5, and Xbox, Steam is clearly the main platform for Marathon, accounting for a little under 70% of the audience (800K copies sold). Meanwhile, PS5 takes about 19% (217K) and Xbox (including console, PC, and cloud) accounts for a bit over 11% or 133K. Marathon is technically a first-party Sony title, so seeing the home console struggle to break 20% of the volume is a notable data point for the ongoing platform-agnostic debate. PlayStation Studios online games will almost certainly continue being multiplatform (despite Sony reportedly pulling back on PC releases). Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe As for Marathon, the consensus among hardcore players who pushed through the awkward onboarding phase – myself included – is that it’s fantastic. The gunplay, aesthetic, and presentation are among the best in the shooter genre. A great game doesn’t always equal an immediate hit, though, as shown by our estimates. Things are looking lukewarm right now. But this might be one of those marathon-not-a-sprint situations. Had to, didn’t I? Why wasn’t Marathon a hit on the same level as Arc Raiders? One topic that came up in a lot of conversations at GDC this year was why Marathon hasn’t hit the same stratosphere as Arc Raiders. On paper, they’re both extraction shooters, and Marathon has the Bungie pedigree – the house that built the gold standard for gunplay in Halo and Destiny. Marathon’s neon-futuristic aesthetic also distinguishes itself from the gritty realism of Tarkov or the post-apocalyptic hope of ARC Raiders. But vibes can only get you so far for first impressions if the onboarding feels like a brick wall. Marathon is a sweaty PvP-focused experience with a first-time user experience and UI that I can only describe as dreadful. Players are dropped into a complex ecosystem where the UI, though visually striking, is functionally uninformative, forcing users to manually hover over nondescript, identical icons just to identify basic gear or weapon mods. This lack of clarity is compounded by punishing mechanics like a severe heat gauge for movement and a scarcity of vital resources, all without a clear tutorial or a low-stakes mode to learn the ropes. Most people – even top streamers and veteran shooter players – have no idea what’s going on in Marathon at first. Arc is on the complete other end of the spectrum. As we covered here and here, Arc Raiders offers a more collaborative, approachable loop where players often work together toward shared goals. And the objectives are instantly clear. To many players, this contrast only emphasised Marathon’s issues, especially during the testing period. Players understand the Arc Raiders loop within 30 minutes, while Marathon acts as a massive filter, chewing up newcomers and spitting them out before they can experience the depth of Bungie’s signature gunplay. What I’m getting at here is that the poor first-time user experience of Marathon’s Server Slam likely stifled launch sales, while the opposite was true for Arc. Let’s look at the pre-launch copies sold for each game during their respective Server Slams (launch-aligned) : Looking at the trajectory: Arc Raiders saw a massive 80% jump in copies sold during its three-day Server Slam (day -13 to -11). Players jumped in, realised the water was fine, and immediately opened their wallets. Marathon, meanwhile, saw a 49% increase in the four days following its Slam (Day -7 to -3). At the time of each game’s respective launch, Arc Raiders had nearly double the Steam footprint of Marathon – and word of mouth only continued to grow. Bungie could have had more time to fix the onboarding process had the beta happened earlier. But Marathon launched three days after the beta finished. These factors limited the launch sales quite a bit, I reckon. Marathon has found a niche audience, though Despite the friction-heavy start, the data suggests that those who survived Marathon’s onboarding are loving life. We’ve been tracking cross-platform DAUs, and while there’s the expected post-launch leakage, many players are sticking with it. After peaking at 478K total DAUs on its first Saturday, Marathon has settled into a respectable rhythm, holding 345K DAUs as of yesterday and averaging 380K DAUs across the weekend. Steam continues to do the heavy lifting here, consistently accounting for the lion’s share of the daily players. Players have been putting in the hours, too: On Steam, Marathon’s average playtime has climbed to 27.8 hours, significantly outpacing the console averages on PS5 (16.5h) and Xbox (17.3h). Even more telling than the averages: 22% of the Steam audience has surged past the 50-hour mark, and nearly 7% have already logged over 100 hours. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe This data suggests that once the Bungie magic clicks, it hooks players deeper than the average extraction shooter. There’s also started to be a shift in the game’s discourse. Marathon launched as one of those games that’s cool to hate. But as Marathon’s 100-hour club grows, we’re seeing conversations around its mechanical merit outweigh the negativity. Several high-profile creators, who were initially vocal critics, have spent the last week coming around on the mechanical depth of the endgame. It’s a subtle but positive signal; the hate train is losing steam, and a new narrative about the game is emerging. Bungie faithfuls unite Another interesting metric in Marathon’s first few weeks is who, exactly, is playing. Bungie leans heavily on its prestige as the “makers of Halo and Destiny,” in its marketing, and that message has clearly hit the mark. On Steam, the gravity (hammer) of Bungie’s previous work is unavoidable. A staggering 78.2% of Marathon players also played Destiny 2. The trend carries across other platforms, with 74.2% of PS5 players and 82.7% of Xbox players also having played Destiny 2. The Halo legacy lives on, it seems. More on that in a bit. While Destiny 2 went free to play, these numbers still represent a high-intent migration of a fanbase that trusts Bungie’s specific brand of kinetic gunplay and cryptic world-building. The Xbox data adds another layer of legacy. About 85.7% of Marathon players on Xbox have played Halo Infinite, while over half of the Steam audience has spent time in Halo Infinite and 36.1% in the Master Chief Collection (a paid collection of the old Bungie-made legacy games). Interestingly, we see a 55.9% overlap with ARC Raiders on Steam. Overlap is even higher there on PlayStation (60.5%) and Xbox (66.5%). And there’s also significant crossover with Helldivers 2 on all platforms, too. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe Bungie has found some of its fans with Marathon, and the challenge now is keeping this engaged in a high-stakes PvP environment when they’ve spent the last decade primarily enjoying the power fantasies of PvE. On that note… Go the full 26 miles? Or cut and run? Time for some could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. These things would have improved Marathon’s performance at launch: A more robust onboarding process, perhaps in the form of a short single-player/PvE campaign. We know Bungie fans love this stuff. A traditional arena-based mode akin to Destiny’s Crucible could have been a bridge for the cautious players who’d have been otherwise deterred by the Server Slam. It’s also a great palate cleanser after getting merked. Introducing a dedicated PvE environment would have similarly diversified the conversation and lowered the barrier for the Bungie faithful who found the pure PvP extraction loop too abrasive. PvE is safer than PvP these days. There’s an argument that a thin PvE mode would have just felt like a budget Destiny, potentially hurting the brand more. But given how dire the FTUE is, I think it would have been a net positive. Any kind of tutorialised loop that demystifies the stakes, really. While there is merit in a studio sticking firmly to a singular creative vision, and going all in on the hardcore extraction loop. Less forgiving is the technical reality is that the user interface and first-time user experience (FTUE) were not at a commercial standard for launch. Subscribe for free to get the most accurate games estimates in your inbox twice a week 🫶 Subscribe In a landscape where player time is oversaturated and the most contested currency, a flawed FTUE is a critical failure point. But it’s not all doom and gloom, as Marathon has an incredible, unique gameplay loop, suggesting that financial success is still attainable if Bungie can pivot effectively. Bungie and PlayStation now face a difficult strategic crossroads, though – one within a challenging games market. They could: Double down on Marathon with a long-term Rainbow Six Siege- or No Man’s Sky-style recovery plan, which is something I heard Last Stand Media’s Chris Maldonado mention last week. While this could be a sunk-cost fallacy in action, it could eventually yield the audience the game’s mechanical depth deserves. Shift focus toward the inevitable Destiny 3 or another project, mitigating the escalating opportunity cost and cutting their losses, so to speak. Doing both is an expensive proposition, given the high overhead and burn rate of operating out of Bellevue, Washington. With Sony recently demonstrating a lower threshold for underperforming studios and projects, the margin for error has vanished. Whatever happens, the next six months will determine whether Marathon becomes a cornerstone of Sony’s live-service portfolio or a cautionary tale of vision exceeding accessibility. I’m hoping it’s the former, because Marathon rocks. As always, hit subscribe to get updates on Marathon and other relevant games. Subscribe Want to get your hands on our data for yourself – for free? We’re offering a free trial of our platform for games companies. Send us a message here, or reply to this email, and we’ll set you up. The last word Reply to this email – or reach out here – if you have any feedback for the newsletter – or want to request a game for us to cover. [Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]
Waterfront staple Shooters brings new life to Flats entertainment district
Shooters became a hotspot in the Flats during Cleveland nightlife's heydey period before the 2000's.
Waterfront staple Shooters brings new life to Flats entertainment district
Shooters became a hotspot in the Flats during Cleveland nightlife's heydey period before the 2000's.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Shooters in the Flats reopens Wednesday, new menu, more entertainment
Shooters in the Flats is reopening Wednesday under new owners. Doors open to the public at 4 p.m.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
One of Marathon's best tricks? It dodges the "Blorko" problem that doomed Concord and Highguard
To many shooters - from Concord to Highguard - have fallen into the trap of needing you to care about unfamiliar characters. Bungie's Marathon dodges it deftly.
Slay the Spire 2 Dev Never Thought It Would Actually Pass Marathon in Steam Concurrents, Says Congratulations Post ‘Seems a Bit Meaner Than Intended’
Some might have thought Bungie’s Marathon was going to be the big launch on Steam this week, but it turns out Slay the Spire 2 has quadrupled Bungie's extraction shooter in terms of concurrent player numbers on Valve's PC gaming platform.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Bungie asks sites to delay Marathon reviews, with release date Steam player count below 100K
Gamers may have to form their own opinions about whether Marathon was worth the wait. Although not mandatory, Bungie has asked websites to postpone reviews, leaving Metacritic blank. Naysayers think the unremarkable Marathon Steam player count reflects a lack of confidence in the shooter.
7 Tips On How Not To Die In ‘Marathon’
Marathon is an extraction shooter, a genre that will have you die a lot by its very nature. But here's how to survive as best as you can.
Highguard will shut down permanently next week because it doesn't have "enough revenue to keep anyone employed to work on it"
After less than six weeks, developer Wildlight has announced it is shutting down its free-to-play hero shooter Highguard.
Highguard has raided its last fortress, will shutdown on March 12
Team-based multiplayer shooter Highguard is shutting down next week, just 46 days after it launched in January.
Report: Fewer than 20 staff remain at Highguard dev Wildlight Entertainment
Sources claim staff were told studio "was out of money" following troubled launch of its free-to-play shooter
Reed Sheppard’s Career Night Signals Breakout for Rockets
Sheppard dictates games with scoring and playmaking. His recent surge proves he’s evolved beyond just a shooter, becoming a complete, confident force.
Overwatch: Rush Preview - Blizzard's First-Person Hero Shooter Goes Top-Down
Overwatch: Rush is a twin-stick shooter designed for mobile.
2 killed, 7 wounded in a street shooting in Virginia entertainment district
Richmond police chief says there were at least two shooters
Colorado county records reveal new details about Evergreen clinic shooter's prior mental health troubles
The 62-year-old Colorado man who fired numerous shots at a medical clinic in Evergreen on Thursday had prior mental health troubles and had been suicidal in the past, records show.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Hollywood celebrities only complain about ICE to ‘score political points’ with liberals, political commentator says
Political commentator Priya Patel and 'Emily Saves America' show host Emily Wilson discuss Hollywood celebrities criticizing I.C.E. and the media omitting reports that the alleged Rhode Island shooter was transgender on ‘Fox News @ Night.’
Sources: Tencent secretly funded struggling shooter Highguard
Wildlight Entertainment has said for years it was "fully-funded" but not shared details.
Ice rink shooter's gender transition, mental health linked to family strife
Court documents reviewed by NewsCenter 5 reveal the ice rink shooting suspect's gender transition and mental illness were a long-running source of family strife.
Woman says 'my father was the shooter' in hockey rink
"He shot my family and he's dead now," she said.
High On Life 2 Guide: 13 Tips To Know Before Playing
We can help you have more fun, find more money, and get more powerful in this new sci-fi comedy shooter
Guns and mental health struggles. What the apparent online footprint of the Canada school shooter tells us
The suspect in Canada’s Tumbler Ridge mass shooting posted about guns and hunting on her YouTube channel and appeared to have written about her struggles with mental health online, according to social media posts.
New Zealand mosque shooter tells court mental health forced him to plead guilty
A white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand seven years ago said on Monday that he was irrational when he pleaded guilty, local media reported, as he sought to overturn his conviction in a New Zealand court.
Luke Kennard immediately fills a desperate need for the Lakers
The move is an immediate upgrade that gives the Lakers a 44% career 3-point shooter alongside Luka Dončić and LeBron James.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Hornets' Kon Knueppel to compete in NBA 3-point contest
Knueppel has been one of the best shooters in the league as a rookie.
M2’s Tokihiro NAITO and Skipmore announce pixel art ‘puzzle adventure shooter’ XeGrader plus for PC
Tokihiro NAITO, a game designer and director who works for M2, has announced XeGrader plus, a fantasy “puzzle adventure shooter” with pixel art by Skipmore. It will be available for PC …
Today, You'll Finally Get to Form Your Own Opinion on PS5 Shooter Highguard
Download for free later on
This Week in Gaming (Week 5)
Welcome to the last week of January and we're finally back to a more normal release schedule. We have a rather unique looking major release this week, which involves camping, climbing and trying not to die. First out this week we have a rather odd looking PvP raid shooter, which is followed by a WW2...
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
The Game Awards' weirdest "and finally" game, Highguard, is showing signs of life, less than one week out from launch
Following a lukewarm reception at The Game Awards, hero shooter Highguard appears to be readying things in the background for its January launch.
Column | ‘Ball and gun’ gamers and the plague of uninformed expertise
Sports games and shooters are often excellent. But the conversation around them is a symptom of a wider culture that treats participation as knowledge.
Bungie's 'Marathon' gets March release date
After a long delay, the extraction shooter finally has a release date.
Bungie’s Marathon shooter launches on March 5th
Bungie is pricing its upcoming extraction shooter at $39.99.
Marathon release date reportedly leaks via Xbox Store pre-order trailer
The release date for Bungie's upcoming extraction shooter Marathon has seemingly leaked via an Xbox Store pre-order trailer.
Ubisoft Keeps Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Far Cry Primal Alive on Current Gen Consoles With 60 FPS Support
Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Far Cry 3 — the 2012 instalment starring Michael Mando as Vaas Montenegro in what is arguably the best game in Ubisoft's first-person shooter series — is getting a 60fps update on current gen consoles.
I can’t stop shooting Oddcore’s endless waves of weird little guys
Zippy action, fun upgrade system make for a great pick-up-and-play shooter.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Arc Raiders and Detroit: Become Human top sellers over the holiday period, say analysts
Extraction shooter sells over four million copies across Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox in December 2025, according to Video Game Insights
'Marvel Rivals' Is Making Deadpool Take on All 3 Roles
In Deadpool's own style, the merc with a mouth himself announced that he will slot into all three of the Marvel hero shooter's role archetypes.
Cosm Shared Reality immersive entertainment solution venues
With the cost of attending live sporting events being out of reach for a lot of fans, there is a big market for creating a shared immersive experience that makes you feel like you are there. A company called Cosm, who have a ton of experience doing dome installations all around the world, has come … Continued
Man injured in shooting at Bay Area business
The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the shooter fled before officers arrived, San Jose police said.
The 15 best games to play on the Nintendo Switch in 2026
From the greatest cartoon racing game in history to a remastered version of an Alien-inspired sci-fi shooter, here are the Switch’s must-play games
Embark CEO confirms that Arc Raiders' matchmaking takes your aggression into account, so behave yourself out there
Patrick Söderlund of Embark Studios confirms that Arc Raiders now uses an aggression-based matchmaking system, as players had speculated.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Short-handed Leafs Shut Out Devils
Sheldon Keefe’s shooter tutors didn’t help. The New Jersey Devils still can’t score. Two days after Keefe resorted to using shooter tutors in practice, the Devils went to Toronto, fired 33 pucks on Leafs’ goalie Joseph Woll, and lost 4-0 to a Toronto team that was without the services of Auston Matthews and William Nylander. […]
Sharp shooters: the best sports photos of 2025 and the stories behind them
From long exposures of motor racing to remote-operated cameras at football matches, here’s how our favourite sports images were made
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Call of Duty game cocreator Vince Zampella dies in car crash in the US
The developer and executive was known as one of the most influential figures in modern first-person shooter games.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
The Best Shooter Games Of 2025 According To Metacritic
Locked and loaded for action, shooter games brought the heat to PC and consoles in 2025.
Galaxy Z Fold 8 tipped to upgrade two cameras next year
Galaxy Z Fold 8 is rumored to get major camera upgrades next year, including higher-resolution telephoto and ultrawide shooters.
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Arc Raiders Cold Snap Update Goes Live Alongside Big 1.7.0 Patch Notes
Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios has released the Cold Snap update alongside lengthy patch notes for version 1.7.0 of the extraction shooter.
Bungie’s delayed shooter Marathon launches in March
Bungie also released a new look at the game.
Analysis: Two mass shootings many time zones apart shatter communities and expose fraught politics
At about 4:20 p.m. on a cold Rhode Island Saturday, a message from Brown University flashed up on cellphones all over campus — everyone should run or take cover from an active shooter.
‘Fog of war’: Brown University professor describes police swarm after shooting
Computer science professor Michael Littman said he was grading papers in a building next door to the active-shooter scene when Providence police swarmed the area.
Person shot at Collier County sports complex, one arrested
A Shooter at Collier County sports complex is in custody after a shooting.
Overwatch 2 Commits Its Greatest Sin Yet
The Fortnite-ification of Blizzard’s hero shooter just hit a new low
Sony Interactive Entertainment to produce and publish Bad Robot Games-developed co-op shooter for PS5, PC
Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a partnership with Bad Robot Games, a division of the film, television, and theater production company Bad Robot founded by JJ Abrams, to produce and pu…
Marvel Rivals - The Super Hero Team-based PVP Shooter
Play for free Now!! Get ready to Ignite the Battle with Marvel Rivals!
Accused National Guard shooter pleaded not guilty to charges at first court appearance from the hospital
The Afghan man appeared in court virtually from his hospital bed on Tuesday to plead not guilty to charges related to the shooting two of National Guardsmen in Washington, DC.