You Will Have the Chance to Play Bungie's Marathon Game This Month

The first closed alpha for Bungie’s Marathon is kicking off on April 23.

Everyone interested in playing Marathon way ahead of its release will have a chance of doing so in late April 2025, courtesy of an upcoming closed alpha that Bungie has just confirmed. The playtest was announced alongside a new cinematic trailer, which also revealed the release date of Bungie‘s long-time-coming shooter.

Marathon will mark Bungie’s first new title since the incredibly long-lasting Destiny 2, which was originally released in September 2017. Unlike the first two Marathon games, their upcoming sequel is an extraction shooter, being designed around a genre that didn’t even exist back when the series got its start in the mid-’90s.

Bungie originally announced Marathon during the May 2023 PlayStation Games Showcase, but has shared few new details about the project over the following two years. This prolonged period of radio silence is now officially over, with the company at last treating Marathon to a proper gameplay reveal earlier today, April 12, in addition to announcing the extraction shooter’s release date: September 23. Moreover, Bungie also confirmed that some lucky fans will soon be playing Marathon way ahead of everyone else.

Marathon Closed Alpha Test Dates and Platforms

Start: April 23
End: May 4
Supported platforms: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

An early look at Marathon will be available through the game’s newly announced closed alpha, scheduled to begin on April 23. Anyone lucky enough to get accepted into the playtester pool will be asked to sign an NDA before they can jump into the pre-release version of Marathon. The alpha will run for nearly two weeks, concluding on May 4. Bungie confirmed that the upcoming test will be available across all of Marathon‘s target platforms: the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

How To Play Marathon Closed Alpha Test

Be a U.S. or Canadian resident who’s at least 18 years old.
Join the official Marathon Discord server.
Navigate to the #alpha_access channel.
Type /alpha (with the forward slash) into the channel’s message box and hit send.
Be fortunate enough to get accepted into the tester pool and receive an alpha invite via email a few days ahead of the test.
Redeem the access code on Bungie.net.
Join the Marathon closed alpha test on April 23, 2025.

While entirely platform-agnostic, the first Marathon alpha will be heavily geographically limited. Only residents of Canada and the U.S. are eligible to participate in the alpha. This restriction suggests that Bungie decided to stress-test the game’s server infrastructure one region at a time, which is a fairly standard industry practice. Bungie has put together a helpful form that helps anyone figure out if they are eligible to test Marathon.

Marathon will have three maps at launch, but Bungie has yet to clarify whether the same will hold true for its upcoming closed alpha. What’s more clear is that some players are currently experiencing issues signing up for the test. Bungie’s customer support cited inadequate string sanitization practices as the cause of the problem, stating that only fans whose usernames start with a special character or a number are affected by the bug. The company is aiming to have the situation resolved by 1:30pm Pacific on April 12.

Source: Game Rant

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