Bungie’s new Marathon is asking less of your PC than most big shooters, which has big implications for performance, platforms, and the March 5 launch.
Bungie’s new Marathon is one of 2026’s most interesting shooters on paper: a PvP extraction game from the studio behind Destiny, built for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. With the newly published PC system requirements, we finally have a clear picture of how demanding it will be, and the answer is surprisingly reassuring for anyone not running a bleeding edge rig.
Minimum specs: friendlier than most recent shooters
Marathon’s minimum PC spec targets hardware that was mid range almost a decade ago. Bungie lists an Intel Core i5 6600 or Ryzen 5 2600, 8 GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or Radeon RX 5500 XT with 4 GB of VRAM. Intel Arc A580 is also listed, provided Resizable BAR is enabled.
Compared to recent shooters, that is extremely forgiving. Helldivers 2, as one example from the current generation of live service shooters, asks for a GTX 1050 Ti on paper but is far more comfortable on stronger GPUs and higher RAM; many 2024 and 2025 releases, like Alan Wake 2 or Black Ops 6, have left cards in this tier behind altogether. Even extraction focused rivals such as Escape from Tarkov or The Finals trend toward stronger recommendations and heavier CPU expectations.
By explicitly supporting a 1050 Ti class GPU and only requiring 8 GB of system memory at the floor, Bungie is signaling that Marathon is built to scale down without collapsing. That is very much in line with the broader trend PC Gamer called out for 2025 and beyond, where publishers are finally pulling back from the runaway escalation of minimum specs so they can hit a larger audience and, crucially, higher frame rates.
The CPU targets also tell a story. An i5 6600 and Ryzen 5 2600 are not core monsters by modern standards, yet Bungie is comfortable listing them for minimum. In an extraction shooter with dense netcode, physics, and potentially complex simulation, that suggests efficient thread usage and a rendering pipeline tuned for lower end quad and hexa core chips, rather than assuming everyone has a 13th gen i5 or Ryzen 7000.
Recommended specs hint at high frame rate ambitions
The recommended spec nudges things up, but not into absurdity. Bungie calls for an Intel Core i5 10400 or Ryzen 5 3500, 16 GB of RAM, and a GTX 2060 6 GB, Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB, or Intel Arc A770 with Resizable BAR.
Those are solid but very achievable targets in 2026. This class of GPU is entry level ray tracing era hardware. Modern Unreal and custom engine shooters often start to really sing at this tier, and the implication here is that Marathon should be capable of pushing into high refresh territory at 1080p and likely 1440p while holding onto its stylized visual flair.
Compared to visually ambitious single player games that now routinely recommend RTX 3070 class cards or higher, these numbers look almost conservative. For a competitive multiplayer shooter, that makes sense. Bungie has long prioritized performance and responsiveness in Destiny, often targeting 60 frames per second or more on console and letting PC stretch further. Marathon’s recommended spec points to a similar philosophy: prioritize stable, high frame rates over maximal ray traced spectacle.
The explicit 16 GB RAM recommendation is worth noting too. While 8 GB is technically enough to boot the game, modern Windows plus background apps plus an online shooter can swamp that very quickly. Bungie’s split between minimum and recommended looks realistic rather than aspirational, which should help set expectations. On a rig meeting the recommended spec, you should be able to run Marathon without constant texture streaming hitches or aggressive asset pop in.
What this says about Bungie’s tech
We still do not know everything about Bungie’s tech stack for Marathon, but the system requirements provide some clues. Supporting a GTX 1050 Ti and RX 5500 XT suggests a renderer that scales its effects and materials gracefully, rather than hinging on heavy ray tracing or massive virtualized texture sets. The lack of any ray tracing mention in the minimum or recommended specs implies that if ray traced features exist, they will be optional seasoning rather than core to playability.
The spread between CPU minimum and recommended also feels deliberately tight. Bungie is not asking for a high core count monster; instead it is targeting modest six core chips that are now widely available on the used market. This lines up with Destiny’s history of running well on older CPUs, which relied more on careful optimization than brute force.
Another small but telling detail is the Intel Arc callout. Both minimum and recommended specs mention Arc GPUs with Resizable BAR required. Arc cards are notoriously dependent on ReBAR for acceptable performance, so the fact that Bungie is paying attention here suggests they have actually profiled and tuned the game on this newer ecosystem, rather than treating it as an afterthought. That bodes well for overall driver cooperation and hints at a rendering path that avoids some of the API pitfalls that hurt Arc in older titles.
The one missing piece is storage. None of the listed specs include an install size. However, the recent technical test reportedly weighed in around 15 GB and did not appear to be heavily compressed or stripped down. Unless Bungie’s content ramps up dramatically between test and launch, Marathon is unlikely to be one of those 150 GB SSD eaters. In practical terms, that makes it friendlier to mid sized SSDs and entry tier gaming laptops where 500 GB remains the norm.
Platform comparisons and how Marathon stacks up
Looking across the shooter landscape, Marathon’s numbers are part of a small but welcome shift. Over the last few years, many competitive and live service titles have inflated minimum specs for features that largely matter to single player or cinematic experiences. Bungie appears to be going in the opposite direction, aligning with titles like Valorant and Counter Strike 2 that aim for accessibility first, fidelity second.
Marathon will still bring modern expectations with it. DirectX 12 is a hard requirement. Older operating systems are off the table, and an SSD, while not strictly listed, is increasingly assumed if you want consistent streaming and quick load times in an always online game. Still, the baseline GPU and CPU targets are comfortably below the current average on Steam, which should translate to a wide playable audience from day one.
For players on more powerful rigs, these relatively modest requirements suggest plenty of headroom. A system that clears the recommended spec by a generation or two should be able to push higher resolutions, higher frame rates, or both without falling into the sub 60 fps swamp. If Bungie exposes granular graphics options and upscalers such as DLSS and FSR, Marathon could become one of those shooters that sings on high refresh 1440p and 4K displays while still feeling accessible on budget gear.
Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck: where the trouble starts
If the raw performance picture looks rosy, the platform story is more complicated, especially away from Windows. On paper, Marathon’s low GPU and CPU requirements seem perfect for handheld PCs like the Steam Deck or devices running SteamOS and other Linux distributions. A GTX 1050 Ti equivalent in the minimum spec is right in the range where many players start testing whether a game can run on Valve’s handheld.
The issue is not really performance. It is anti cheat and official support. Marathon uses BattlEye, the same anti cheat system that Bungie employs for Destiny 2. While BattlEye itself can be configured to work on Proton and SteamOS, Bungie has historically chosen not to enable or support that configuration. Destiny 2 is outright blocked on Steam Deck, and attempting to run it under Linux can result in bans.
GamingOnLinux’s analysis of the current specs and Bungie’s stance is blunt: despite the friendly hardware requirements, Marathon is likely to be unplayable on SteamOS and Linux at launch, at least via the official Steam build. Unless Bungie announces explicit Linux / Proton support and works with BattlEye to whitelist those environments, the game will probably refuse to run or will be at risk of anti cheat action.
For native Windows PCs, including those using handheld form factor devices like the ROG Ally or Legion Go, the story should be much better. Their APUs tend to land above a 1050 Ti in raw capability, especially at lower resolutions and with upscalers. Assuming the anti cheat behaves normally on Windows, Marathon could become a strong candidate for portable play there. But on Steam Deck and other Linux based systems, the bottleneck is policy, not performance.
Storage expectations as we approach March 5
With launch set for March 5, storage remains the biggest open question in Marathon’s spec sheet. The absence of a hard drive or SSD requirement on the Steam page is unusual this close to release, but the technical test size and moderate hardware targets both suggest a restrained footprint. Compared to the 100 GB plus installs that have become common in the AAA shooter space, even a doubled or tripled version of the test client would remain fairly compact.
For players planning their drive budgets, the safest assumption is that Bungie will recommend an SSD, even if the game can technically run from a hard drive. Fast storage has become increasingly important in networked games that stream assets constantly between rounds and match instances. The small download footprint seen so far, though, should make Marathon far less stressful than some of its contemporaries, especially on 512 GB or 1 TB drives that already juggle multiple live service clients.
The bottom line
Marathon’s system requirements paint a picture of a shooter that is surprisingly kind to your hardware yet serious about performance. Minimum specs that welcome older GPUs like the GTX 1050 Ti, reasonable recommended targets, and careful consideration for Intel Arc all point to a well optimized engine tuned for smooth play across a wide spectrum of PCs.
If you are on Windows with anything close to a modern six core CPU and a mid range card from the last few generations, you should be in good shape for Bungie’s extraction experiment. Just do not expect to take it on the Steam Deck or other Linux based machines unless Bungie’s stance on BattlEye and Proton changes before March 5. As it stands, the real barriers to entry for Marathon are less about teraflops and more about operating systems and anti cheat policies.