Marathon surprises critics, ranks fourth in March U.S. game sales

The backlash around Marathon has been loud, but March sales told a different story. Bungie’s extraction shooter ranked fourth on Circana’s March U.S. premium game chart by dollar sales, and sixth year-to-date, a strong result for a $39.99 game that spent months buried under skepticism and grief-watch threads.

Circana said five new releases landed among the top seven best-selling games of March on its combined physical and participating digital chart: MLB The Show 26 was first, WWE 2K26 was third, Marathon was fourth, Pokémon: Pokopia was fifth on physical sales only, and Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection was seventh. The broader market was healthy too. U.S. video game spending rose 12% year over year in March to $5.3 billion, while hardware spending jumped 69% to $500 million, lifted by Nintendo Switch 2 and higher PlayStation 5 spending. Marathon did not just sneak onto the chart. It did so in a month packed with major launches and platform momentum.

That makes the result more meaningful than a simple placement number. Circana’s ranking was based on revenue, not units, which matters in a month where a lower-priced premium game can look very different from a $70 release. Even so, the chart position suggests Bungie still had real consumer curiosity behind the noise, despite months of cautionary comparisons to other live-service projects and the usual anxiety that follows any high-profile multiplayer launch.

The commercial showing is especially striking because Marathon had a rough road to market. Bungie delayed it indefinitely on June 17, 2025 after alpha feedback, then later set a March 5, 2026 release date at $39.99. Bungie said there would be no pay-to-win mechanics, that updates like maps, Runner shells, and events would be included, and that its reward pass would not expire. In November 2025, Sony CFO Lin Tao said Sony was “fully dedicated” to launching the title by the end of the fiscal year, which kept Marathon on track for March.

The game also carried damage from the art-plagiarism controversy involving Fern Hook, who works under the name ANTIREAL. Hook said the issue was resolved to her satisfaction, and Bungie said it reviewed the assets and later addressed the matter. That is why March’s chart position matters so much: Sony got a real data point, Bungie got evidence that awareness can still convert into purchases, and skeptics got a reminder that social-media backlash does not always map neatly onto actual sales. Marathon has not proven it can keep players. It has proven, for now, that plenty of them were willing to buy in.