Bungie is finally throwing the doors open on Marathon. The studio confirmed on Wednesday that Season 2: Nightfall will launch on June 2 alongside the extraction shooter's first Open Play Week, a seven-day stretch from June 2 to June 9 during which the full game will be free on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam - no PS Plus subscription required, no progress lost if you decide to buy in afterwards.
The free trial lands at a moment Bungie clearly needs it. Marathon's launch this spring drew a mixed reception, and the player base has been bleeding ever since. The Open Play Week is the studio's first concrete answer: try the game in full, keep every piece of your Season 2 progress, then either walk away or upgrade to a paid copy with nothing carried over forfeited.
Steam numbers spell out exactly why Bungie needs the rebound
The decline has been steep enough to be measurable in public charts. Marathon launched worldwide on March 5, 2026 and posted an all-time concurrent peak of 88,337 players on Steam that same day, off the back of a Marathon Server Slam demo that had earlier topped 143,000 players. From that opening-night high the game has fallen sharply. SteamCharts data has March 2026's monthly average at 35,040 concurrent players, dropping to 15,832 in April (down 55 percent) and an 8,424 average over the last 30 days (down another 47 percent). Recent 24-hour peaks have been hovering near 12,000 - less than 15 percent of launch day - and live concurrents at any given moment have dipped under 4,000.
The pattern matches what community feedback has flagged for months: a steep learning curve that demands real time investment, inventory friction, a contentious battle pass, and stiff competition from elsewhere in the extraction-shooter space. Marathon's user-review score on Steam has actually stayed broadly positive at around 85 percent across 43,000-plus reviews, so this isn't a game most players who pushed through hated - it is one most never came back to. The Open Play Week is built to break that loop: lower the barrier to zero, hand returners a meaningful Season 2 to come back for, and convert curiosity into a paid copy before June 9.
Night Marsh is the centrepiece - and a tonal pivot
The headline content drop in Nightfall is Night Marsh, a darker, lower-visibility reworking of the existing Dire Marsh zone that leans hard into survival-horror staging. Lobby counts are smaller, flashlights become a core tool, and Bungie has tuned both pacing and audio design to give the swamps a near-haunted feel. The Season 2 cinematic trailer plays that pivot up front, swapping the neon-edged action of Marathon's debut months for shadow, fog and the constant suggestion of something just outside the torch beam.
Sentinel joins the Runner lineup, plus systems overhauls
Sentinel, the new Runner shell, is built around defence and area control. It slows enemy advances, gathers intel and lays traps rather than racing to extract, giving Marathon's loadout meta a shape that should feel familiar to anyone who has spent time with anchor-class characters elsewhere in the extraction-shooter genre. Bungie is pairing Sentinel with a new Runner stat customisation system, faster faction progression, the long-rumoured Cradle hub, fresh weapons, and a stack of quality-of-life updates pulled directly from community feedback.
Marathon's Open Play Week is timed to put the maximum number of eyes on those changes. If you have held off on buying since launch, June 2 through June 9 is the window to find out whether Nightfall is the rebound Bungie needed - and to lock in any Season 2 progress you make before the door closes again on June 10.
