Marathon reportedly launching March 5 after Xbox mishap

It’s been a long time coming for Marathon after less-than-ideal early playtests and being embroiled in art theft. Nothing seemed to be in the game’s favor.

However, after a good response from those who got hands-on in December and promising videos showcasing gameplay, things are definitely getting back on track for Bungie’s extraction game.

Now, we’ve seemingly got a release date for Marathon thanks to a slip-up on the Xbox Club page.

Marathon’s release date leaked on Xbox

In a comical turn of events, since Bungie is now owned by PlayStation, it appears that a post in the game’s Xbox Club has revealed Marathon’s release date ahead of pre-orders going live for the title.

The now seemingly nuked from the internet trailer/ad went live on Xbox earlier than intended, showing off gameplay, a March 5, 2026, release date for Marathon, as well as the Deluxe Edition contents.

We were aware that Marathon was set to launch in March, thanks to earlier comments from the dev team, but most were expecting the release to come at the latter end of the month to give it as much time in the oven as possible.

There is an open Marathon playtest set for February, allowing anyone and everyone to get involved, rather than the very exclusive and region-locked playtests that have occurred so far. We don’t know the date of this, but since the game is apparently releasing in the first week of March, we could get this playtest in a couple of weeks’ time.

This playtest will certainly set the tone for release, hopefully a positive one, since most of the build-up has been on the more negative side as we alluded to earlier.

Who knows, with Bungie’s prowess in FPS titles, we could have another Arc Raiders on our hands in no time, with hundreds of thousands flocking to play in tense situations, not knowing who is friend or foe.