{"id":1808536,"date":"2026-03-05T11:18:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1808536"},"modified":"2026-03-05T11:18:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T08:18:43","slug":"marathon-lands-surprise-ps4-and-xbox-one-age-rating-ahead-of-launch-but-should-last-gen-players-really-get-their-hopes-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1808536","title":{"rendered":"Marathon lands surprise PS4 and Xbox One age rating ahead of launch, but should last-gen players really get their hopes up?"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/marathon-2025\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Marathon (2025)<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Marathon lands surprise PS4 and Xbox One age rating ahead of launch, but should last-gen players really get their hopes up?<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">Thinking about the past.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Marathon_PS4_XboxOne.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Marathon on PS4 and Xbox One?\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"Marathon_PS4_XboxOne.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Eurogamer\/Sony\/Microsoft\/Bungie<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fran Ruiz avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/fran-j-ruiz-author.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"180\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Fran Ruiz avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"fran-j-ruiz-author.png\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"180\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/fran-ruiz\">Fran Ruiz<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Contributor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-03-05T11:18:43+00:00\">March 5, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/marathon-gets-ps4-and-xbox-one-rating-from-esrb?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          5 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"22d4da80-cbfb-48da-8b63-ca4c6bd7817c\" data-name=\"Marathon (2025)\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Marathon (2025)\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Marathon (2025)\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Marathon (2025)\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Marathon (2025)\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Marathon (2025)\" title=\"Follow Marathon (2025)\"><br \/>\n  Follow Marathon (2025)<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/marathon-2025\">Marathon<\/a> launches today, 5th March, and following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/marathon-is-good-actually-the-arc-raiders-rivalling-extraction-shooter-proves-bungie-has-still-got-what-made-halo-and-destiny-great\">successful Server Slam test<\/a> last weekend and the reveal of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/marathon-seasons-how-long-season-2-nightfall-info\">promising post-launch plans<\/a>, developer Bungie seems to have finally built some positive sentiment. Only players on current-gen consoles or PC are able to join the fun though &#8211; or at least for now.<\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/clawsomegamer.com\/marathon-rated-for-ps4-and-xbox-one-ahead-of-launch\/\">Clawesomegamer<\/a> (hat tip to <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/knoebel.bsky.social\/post\/3mgbcu357pk2r\">Knoebel<\/a>), we&#8217;ve learned the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esrb.org\/ratings\/41140\/marathon\/\">ESRB rating page<\/a> for Bungie&#8217;s latest is including mentions of PS4 and Xbox One versions, which haven&#8217;t been announced at the time of writing. The site states that &#8220;Marathon is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Animated Blood, Language, and Violence.&#8221; This isn&#8217;t a shocker, as the game generally involves lots of shooting and stabbing both (augmented) human and android opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s our own screenshot of the page in case these mentions are removed:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marathon ESRB rating\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Marathon-ESRB.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Marathon ESRB rating\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Marathon-ESRB.png\" height=\"720\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><figcaption><span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>ESRB<\/cite><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There are two possibilities here. First, we can just assume it&#8217;s a mistake on the ESRB&#8217;s part. After all, Call of Duty continues to drop new releases on last-gen hardware, so it&#8217;s easy to think Sony and Bungie&#8217;s big multiplayer bet is also going wide if you haven&#8217;t been following the news closely.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Second, we could theorise they made a very different mistake: revealing the existence of backports before a formal announcement is made (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/pc-version-of-death-stranding-2-pops-up-on-esrb-website-suggesting-official-announcement-is-close\">new game releases are spoiled by ratings boards all the time<\/a>). In any case, it&#8217;s an interesting wrinkle, especially with the game set to welcome players later today.<\/p>\n<p>We also have to wonder if last-gen compatibility would even be possible for Marathon, considering how dense the level design and graphical presentation are. On PS5 and Xbox Series X\/S (as well as PC), performance during the Server Slam seemed perfectly fine, but it seems obvious the game was built with current-gen hardware in mind.<\/p>\n<p>With simpler multiplayer shooters that use vast open environments like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/fortnite\">Fortnite<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/apex-legends\">Apex Legends<\/a> gradually beginning to struggle on machines from the previous era it would be a surprise &#8211; though Marathon&#8217;s distinctly sleek art style could look better than something overly realistic in a lower graphical presentation.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/playstation-is-reportedly-ditching-its-pc-release-strategy-and-most-first-party-games-will-now-be-console-exclusive\">Sony reportedly ditching PC ports of its single-player games<\/a>, maybe a second move is to get its multiplayer ones on as many platforms as possible.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, we&#8217;ve contacted Bungie to ask for clarification.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/marathon-2025\">Marathon<\/a> launches today, 5th March, and following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/marathon-is-good-actually-the-arc-raiders-rivalling-extraction-shooter-proves-bungie-has-still-got-what-made-halo-and-destiny-great\">successful Server Slam test<\/a> last weekend and the reveal of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/marathon-seasons-how-long-season-2-nightfall-info\">promising post-launch plans<\/a>, developer Bungie seems to have finally built some positive sentiment. Only players on current-gen consoles or PC are able to join the fun though &#8211; or at least for now.<\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/clawsomegamer.com\/marathon-rated-for-ps4-and-xbox-one-ahead-of-launch\/\">Clawesomegamer<\/a> (hat tip to <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/knoebel.bsky.social\/post\/3mgbcu357pk2r\">Knoebel<\/a>), we&#8217;ve learned the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esrb.org\/ratings\/41140\/marathon\/\">ESRB rating page<\/a> for Bungie&#8217;s latest is including mentions of PS4 and Xbox One versions, which haven&#8217;t been announced at the time of writing. The site states that &#8220;Marathon is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Animated Blood, Language, and Violence.&#8221; This isn&#8217;t a shocker, as the game generally involves lots of shooting and stabbing both (augmented) human and android opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s our own screenshot of the page in case these mentions are removed:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Marathon ESRB rating\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Marathon-ESRB.png?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Marathon ESRB rating\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-lightbox data-uri=\"Marathon-ESRB.png\" height=\"720\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1.7777777777777777\" width=\"1280\"><figcaption><span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>ESRB<\/cite><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There are two possibilities here. First, we can just assume it&#8217;s a mistake on the ESRB&#8217;s part. After all, Call of Duty continues to drop new releases on last-gen hardware, so it&#8217;s easy to think Sony and Bungie&#8217;s big multiplayer bet is also going wide if you haven&#8217;t been following the news closely.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Second, we could theorise they made a very different mistake: revealing the existence of backports before a formal announcement is made (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/pc-version-of-death-stranding-2-pops-up-on-esrb-website-suggesting-official-announcement-is-close\">new game releases are spoiled by ratings boards all the time<\/a>). In any case, it&#8217;s an interesting wrinkle, especially with the game set to welcome players later today.<\/p>\n<p>We also have to wonder if last-gen compatibility would even be possible for Marathon, considering how dense the level design and graphical presentation are. On PS5 and Xbox Series X\/S (as well as PC), performance during the Server Slam seemed perfectly fine, but it seems obvious the game was built with current-gen hardware in mind.<\/p>\n<p>With simpler multiplayer shooters that use vast open environments like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/fortnite\">Fortnite<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/apex-legends\">Apex Legends<\/a> gradually beginning to struggle on machines from the previous era it would be a surprise &#8211; though Marathon&#8217;s distinctly sleek art style could look better than something overly realistic in a lower graphical presentation.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/playstation-is-reportedly-ditching-its-pc-release-strategy-and-most-first-party-games-will-now-be-console-exclusive\">Sony reportedly ditching PC ports of its single-player games<\/a>, maybe a second move is to get its multiplayer ones on as many platforms as possible.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, we&#8217;ve contacted Bungie to ask for clarification.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News Marathon (2025) Marathon lands surprise PS4 and Xbox One age rating ahead of launch, but should last-gen players really get their hopes up? Thinking about the past. Image credit: Eurogamer\/Sony\/Microsoft\/Bungie News by Fran Ruiz Contributor Published on March 5, 2026 5 comments Follow Marathon (2025) Marathon launches today, 5th March, and following a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1808536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1808536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1808536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1808536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1808536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}