As Marathon and Highguard near release, report finds most 2025 live service games have lost 90% of players

Marathon and Highguard are two upcoming live service games with notable talent behind them. Bungie, the creators of Halo and Destiny, are bringing back Marathon following the series’ debut in 1994. Meanwhile, Highguard is an entirely new PvP raid shooter by Wildlight Entertainment, a studio made up of talent who previously worked on Apex Legends and Titanfall. Skepticism exists around both games, and The Gamer has shared findings revealing that many live service games released in 2025 lost 90% of their players on Steam.

The Gamer’s findings are accurate as of January 19, 2026, and only report on new live service games released on Steam last year. Live service games are multiplayer titles that are continually supported post-launch in an effort to bring players back.

According to the report, 11 of the 19 live service titles released in 2025 lost more than 90% of their all-time player count, according to SteamDB. These include games such as Splitgate 2 (25,785 to 1,479), FragPunk (113,946 to 2,248), and Skate (134,901 to 6,193).

Another four games lost more than 80% of their all-time peak on Steam, including Battlefield 6 (747,440 to 129,124), which was only released in October 2025. We previously reported that Arc Raiders retained 90% of its peak player count, while Battlefield 6’s fell by over 80%.

As for success stories, The Gamer points to just two live service games that lost fewer than 50% of their all-time peak. These include the anime gacha game Wuthering Waves, which is continuing to grow, and Arc Raiders (481,966 to 466,372), which has lost only 3.2% of its peak player count.

Marathon and Highguard aren’t doomed to fail, but the live service market is unforgiving

Despite the skepticism surrounding them, Marathon and Highguard aren’t doomed to fail, even though the live service market is brutally unforgiving. We’ve seen major success stories such as Arc Raiders selling over 12 million copies in just two months, but we’ve also seen embarrassing disasters like Concord shutting down just a week after launch, with Sony issuing refunds.

There is a lot of negativity online claiming that Highguard is Concord 2.0 in the making. While it’s impossible to predict how well the game will perform, Highguard is at least launching as a free-to-play title, unlike Concord, which was released at $40. Highguard will also be free-to-play across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. However, it is currently not even in Steam’s top 100 most-wishlisted games, despite its imminent release date of January 26, 2026.

As for Marathon, there is significant pressure on Bungie. Sony acquired the studio in 2022 for a reported $3.7 billion, and the relationship has not been smooth, with Sony taking greater control over the developer’s decisions and implementing a “structural reform” in 2025.

Much of the pressure on Marathon comes from Sony’s hit-or-miss pursuit of live service success. Helldivers 2 has been a hit, but Concord was a cataclysmic failure, and Sony has canceled numerous live service projects that were in development. This includes The Last of Us Factions, which Bungie reportedly encouraged Naughty Dog to cancel.

Sony CFO Lin Tao has admitted that the company’s live service strategy is “not entirely going smoothly,” reinforcing the sense that a lot is riding on Marathon, especially with Sony’s other live service title, the heist multiplayer experience Fairgame$, nowhere to be seen.

Marathon features an impressive cast of voice actors from Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Baldur’s Gate 3, and Bungie remains a highly regarded studio. However, with its March 5, 2026, release date quickly approaching, it remains to be seen how appealing the game will be to a core group of players, particularly after Bungie previously told Destiny 2 fans that Marathon is “probably not the game for you”.