Between Marathon and ARC Raiders, it's clear who took the biggest risk

The extraction shooter genre has grown so big—perhaps too big, depending on who you ask—that it now seems to be the dominant template for live-service shooters. There are plenty of leaders in the genre, although the latest figurehead to emerge is ARC Raidersa game that, despite some controversy, has managed to gather a huge, dedicated player base since its launch in October 2025. As Escape from Tarkov, The Divisionand The Hunt: Showdown before that, ARC Raiders is shaping up to be a touchstone against which all future extraction shooters are measured.

This is already happening, as it was recently released Marathon has received no shortage of comparisons to ARC Raiders the past few weeks, and most of them aren't exactly favorable to the previous ones. Even before the launch, expectations of Marathon were tempered to say the least, with early impressions noting that it lacked a strong “hook” or reason to keep playing, round after round. Following Marathonserver slam and eventual release, opinions about the game have ended up in a more varied range: many players have praised the game, but it does not enjoy the phenomenal success of something that ARC Raiders. One could analyze the reasons behind this until the cows come home, but a central factor is risk-taking, which ARC Raiders exhibits to a much greater extent.

Family

Marathon vs. ARC Raiders on Steam Player Count

Marathon is now here to give ARC Raiders its first major competitor, and this is how each game's Steam player count is shaped.

Even if you don't particularly like ARC Raidersit's hard to argue that it's not unique. Just looking at it in the context of other extraction shooters (or other multiplayer shooters in general, for that matter), its dense, unique sci-fi world, compelling ARC PvE enemies, and robust, elegant social system is clearly enough to pique anyone's interest.

Drag weapons to fill the grid

EasyMediumHard

ARC Raiders has the same high-risk, high-reward thrills as its extraction genre contemporaries, but the social systems are its true crown jewel. All in ARC Raiders subtly encourages you to cooperate with your fellow players instead of outright killing them, opening the doors to emergent gameplay wide open. It is rewarding to cooperate with other players (a process enhanced by ARCs large proximity chat), and the basic design choice is a huge risk in a genre defined by competition. By successfully implementing pro-social gaming, ARC Raiders arguably redefines what extraction shooters can be.

Marathon has a lot going for it, but it's not groundbreaking

To call Marathon generic or uninspired is completely unfair, even if its ingenuity is expressed in its details rather than its basic construction. Marathons striking art style, for example, enriches its strong and satisfying FPS gameplay, but this does not create an entirely new kind of experience in the way that ARC Raiders' multi-layered, emergent social systems do. Similar, Marathons fantastic gunplay – which isn't a surprise considering it's a Bungie game – makes combat fun, intense and tactical, but in the same way that Halo and Fate. The effect of this is expressed in Steam data for each game which at the time of writing can be summarized as follows:

ARC Raiders current players: 128,346
Marathon current players: 39,092

ARC Raiders 24-hour peak concurrent players: 147,231
Marathon 24-hour peak concurrent players: 53,569

ARC Raiders all-time top concurrent players: 481,966
Marathon all-time top concurrent players: 88,337

For the record, none of this is meant to necessarily declare ARC Raiders which objectively better than Marathononly that it pushes more boundaries and succeeds by virtue of this. A good way to describe it Marathon can be like an extremely solid execution of a proven premise. Within its individual mechanics, systems and design choices, passion and creativity are evident, but the package as a whole lacks the X-factor of anything like ARC Raiderswhich can damage it in the long run.