Style vs Substance: The Brutal Reality of Marathon and ARC Raiders.

Bungie's Marathon officially launched on March 5, 2026, and its striking similarity to Embark's ARC Raiders, released on October 30, 2025, has sparked considerable discussion among players. Can Marathon steal more players from ARC Raiders?

Initial data shows that Marathon's peak concurrent player count on Steam was slightly over 86,000. This is far less than its competitor, ARC Raiders, which boasted a remarkable 264,000 concurrent players on Steam upon its launch last October.

Both are PvPvE resource-grabbing games, inherently sharing many similarities. Both possess similar mechanics, such as shields, bandages, weapon attachments, traders, quests, stamina, and unique PvE enemies. Even both games feature energy guns.

So, given their high degree of similarity, what are the differences between these two games?

Game Perspective

The first and most obvious difference is the game's perspective. ARC Raiders offers a more forgiving third-person perspective, initially focused on PvE gameplay and still retaining strong PvE elements. Marathon, on the other hand, breaks the genre's boundaries, adopting a high-risk, high-reward first-person perspective, emphasizing player-versus-player combat. Marathon is known for its hardcore, PvP-centric gameplay.

Therefore, ARC Raiders allows you to experience pure PvE fun or fully enjoy the thrill of PvP. Marathon focuses more on PvP. These two games offer two different perspectives, allowing players to choose freely.

Frankly, you can play ARC Raiders casually without any problems. But Marathon is not so easy. I would even say that Marathon is not suitable for casual players.

Game Interface

Marathon's HUD and user interface are a chaotic mess, like an obnoxious first-year art student's exhibition, filled with colors and symbols. While you eventually learn them, their design is far from intuitive. It looks like a random jumble of small cubes with some nonsensical designs; unless you read the descriptions, you have no idea what they are. Meanwhile, the map, PvE enemies, and sound effects are all a jumbled mess.

ARC Raiders currently offers a more polished and comprehensive experience. ARC Raiders's combat experience is far superior to Marathon's. You can attack monster parts, and they react. While fighting them is still frightening, they don't feel invincible. The monsters in Marathon are more like tanks, with only their heads as weak points.

ARC Raiders' sound design is simply amazing. You can accurately pinpoint the location of nearby machines through sound effects, and if you hear multiple machines, you can identify them solely by sound. Moreover, the gunshots are very pleasant to hear, and the environmental sound effects are perfectly in line with expectations.

ARC Raiders' map events and design are also superior. Flare flares truly offer players more options. Events like night raids, cold waves, and hurricanes genuinely change how players interact with the map, keeping the game constantly fresh.

Everything in ARC feels more meticulously designed: item pickup is clearer, the user interface is simpler and more ergonomic, missions and contracts provide a real sense of progress, you know exactly what to do, you have your own base, you can invest time at your own pace and desire, creating a more engaging intrinsic goal, and you can customize your character, both in appearance and skill tree.

Game Content

For a game to maintain its longevity, it undoubtedly needs continuous updates and upgrades, bringing more challenging elements.

Many people love ARC Raiders because each extraction feels like completing a huge challenge, but since the first Expedition, players have rarely experienced that exhilarating moment of successfully extracting. Unless you play particularly recklessly, extractions are almost inevitable. However, Marathon does this much better; every successful extraction is a huge and exhilarating challenge.

Marathon is better suited to an extraction shooter because every moment is filled with brutal challenges. ARC Raiders, on the other hand, feels more like a PvE loot-hunting game. To obtain the high-level ARC Raiders Weapon, you must defeat Queen and Matriarch bosses, something many players haven't achieved even after two resets. Marathon makes high-level content more accessible through a clear faction progression system, rather than restricting it to specific enemies like ARC Raiders.

After the second Expedition, ARC Raiders' weaknesses became increasingly apparent. While I enjoy the game's social interactions, once you reach level 75, the items become as monotonous as a shopping list, leaving only those highlights. ARC Raiders should take a good look at  Marathon. If there's any room for improvement in ARC, it's increasing the difficulty.

In addition, there's equipment. ARC Raiders Items are lackluster; aside from the golden weapon, the crafting costs for other equipment are pitifully low. I hope the consequences of PvP will be more severe, so players will be more motivated to seriously prepare their gear.

Everyone is comparing these two games because they are essentially both survival shooters. One will succeed, the other will fail - that's the reality. Most survival shooter players won't play both games simultaneously because they don't have that much time and energy.

Therefore, in the long run, Bungie and Embark need to compete for player bases. This is beneficial for players; both games need to continuously upgrade and improve to attract more players.