Marathon launch times and release date

Marathon launch time: A close-up shot of looking Thief facing to the side but looking towards the camera with a stern expression. — (Image credit: Bungie)

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Launch times
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System requirements

After a less-than-ideal early reception last year, Bungie made the call to indefinitely delay Marathon while it returned to the drawing board somewhat. Now, it's officially back on the menu, and the Marathon launch time is drawing near.

But release is far from the end of Bungie's plans for Marathon, as it unveiled Season 1: Death is the First Step and gave us a look at what's to come later on in the roadmap. Controversially, it's also locked in mandatory server wipes roughly every three months, so don't get too precious about any loot you find at launch.

When is the Marathon unlock time?

Marathon releases on Thursday, March 5, at 6 pm UTC, on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. This works out as the following times in each region:

US Pacific: 10 am PST, March 5
US Eastern: 1 pm EST, March 5
UK: 6 pm GMT, March 5
Central Europe: 7 pm CET, March 5
Australia: 5 am AEDT, March 6
New Zealand: 7 am NZDT, March 6

This comes just over three days after the end of the Server Slam, where we all had the opportunity to give Bungie's extraction shooter a test run. Bungie has taken a lot of the feedback on board and has even given us some interesting player stats, like how we extracted 145,822 cases of Premium Tick Milk and a whopping 384,866 Drinkable Cheeseburgers, for some reason.

Is there preloading for Marathon?

Marathon: A first-person image of a player shooting UESC robots in a hallway. — (Image credit: Bungie)

Yes, you can currently preload Marathon on all platforms if you've pre-ordered the game. Note that on PC, you'll need roughly double the game's overall size to be able to preload and decrypt the files on launch day—if you don't have space, just download it at launch. Marathon's only around 25 GB across all platforms, so it shouldn't take too long to download anyhow.

Marathon system requirements

Marathon: A low-angle shot of a group of Runners shooting Ticks leaping towards them inside a narrow corridor. — (Image credit: Bungie)

Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements for Marathon on PC:

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Part	Minimum	Recommended
Processor	Intel Core i5-6600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600	Intel Core i5-10400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Memory	8 GB RAM	16 GB RAM
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (4 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (4 GB) / Intel Arc A580 (8 GB, with ReBAR on)	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB) / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT (8 GB) / Intel Arc A770 (16 GB, with ReBAR on)
VRAM	6 GB	8 GB
OS	Windows 10 64-bit	Windows 10 64-bit
Direct X	Version 12	Version 12

Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.

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