Marathon Proves ‘Release Now, Fix Later’ Trend Ruins Games
It needed to end long ago
With the announcement that Marathon will be launching with a new Cry Archive map two weeks past its initial release date of 5 March 2026, it's the latest game that proves that the ‘release now, fix later’ trend needs to end, as it continues to ruin games.
When someone says, “Back in my day, when a game was released, that was it”, it's true! Before the age of post-launch updates, you strictly had what you paid for, for better or worse.
While we’d still encounter some bugs in the 80s, 90s and even 2000s. If a game-breaking bug was encountered, and it was genuinely game-breaking, the product would likely be recalled with no post-launch patch possible. The only option is to return the game and potentially never play it again. After all, it was unlikely that a game that was released in such a poor state would be re-released later on.
The Age of Post-Launch Updates
Today, we’re very used to a game being released, having some bugs and then being fixed with a post-launch update and for the most part, I think that’s fine. The main reason is that no matter how much a game is tested internally, via an alpha and beta, some unforeseen bugs might occur once a game has been released into the big, wide world.
Some games that are live-service might release as a phase one with a season of content, and when a new season comes, intended post-launch content will then be released, and so forth.
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Unfortunately, we have seen our fair share of games that release deliberately unfinished with a fixed later attitude. A game that gave me those vibes was Battlefield 2042, a game with so much content missing a lot of fans seem to believe it was deliberate.
At launch, Battlefield 2042 was missing basic features of an online multiplayer shooter, such as no matchmaking that would keep friends together match-after-match, no traditional scoreboard, in-game voice chat, no character classes, and more.
Granted, pretty much all of the content was added via a series of patches, but for a lot of people, that wasn't enough to bring them back. At the bare minimum, all of the above should have been available at launch. It’s fair to say that Battlefield 2042 killed a lot of goodwill earned with fans over the years. Thankfully, at least, 2025’s Battlefield 6 seems to have gotten the series back on track.
Perhaps the most high-profile examples of buggy launches would be No Man’s Sky, Fallout 76 and Cyberpunk 2077. While not necessarily having a 'fix it later' approach out of malice, it's fair to say all of those games launched in a buggy state and were missing tons of features. Granted, they were fixed over the years and are probably amongst the best of their respective genres now, but we have to ask - why does this happen in the first place?
A reason a game might launch in an unfinished state is that, in some cases, it might be to meet a deadline and please shareholders.
We can probably name several other examples of games that had a “release now and fix later” attitude, but we’d probably be here all day if we listed them all.
Marathon Will Roll Out Content In Waves
Earlier this month, Marathon, the online multiplayer extraction shooter from Bungie, the creators of the Halo and Destiny series, was released. It should have been the studio's next big title, and further down the line, that might be the case, but as of right now, that’s not the way it is, based on what’s currently available in the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a Bungie fan since 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, and I’ve put thousands of hours into both Destiny games before being burned out. But when I fired up Marathon to provide my thoughts on our review, it never once clicked.
While subjective, it has an interesting art style, its gun gameplay is satisfying, but that’s pretty much where my compliments end.
Cryo Archive is set to release in the latter half of March 2026. So far, details are sparse, but we know it's the zone aboard the first floor of the UESC Marathon ship, which is hovering in orbit above Tau Ceti IV. Bungie claims it will be the first "endgame" zone in Marathon, consisting of "security puzzles, frozen vaults, and an entity even the UESC fears."
When review codes were provided, as we’ve seen in the many posts circulating on social media, it was suggested by Bungie that outlets hold out on a full review until its endgame content is released later this month. Let me be clear, however, this was not a requirement from Bungie, just something to consider.
But why would this not be in the game from launch? We can only assume the reasons why Marathon was not released in its full form. Maybe it was to appease shareholders by not delaying the game any further? Maybe there was a contractual obligation to launch on a set date. I can only speculate.
At the time of writing, according to SteamDB, Marathon has an all-time concurrent peak of 88,337, and as I write this article, it has 37,465. Granted, these numbers do not include PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S. But to compare numbers, the all-time concurrent peak for Destiny 2 on Steam is 316,750.
One thing I know for sure - I dislike this method of rolling out content, however common it's become. To me, I find it anti-consumer, and it doesn't appear to do the associated developer any favours either.