Studios that focus on building their communities and fostering player loyalty in Discord can see a direct impact on session lengths and retention for their titles. PC players spend a median of six times longer playing when at least one friend is present on Discord, and eight times longer when at least three friends are present. As the social networks of new Discord members grow, so do their session times in your game.

But managing and growing a Discord server isn’t easy. As your community grows, so does the volume of player messages. Monitoring player feedback becomes more challenging, and for studios with limited resources, analysing that feedback and using it to shape future updates can seem like an impossible task. Dedicated channels for player feedback and bug reporting can help, but sometimes the most valuable feedback is hidden in everyday conversations.

Knowing how important all of this is to driving game growth, we’ve taken a deeper look at four games in different stages of their development journey to see how they’re communicating with players, how those methods of communication impact their players’ perception of the studio, and whether all of this can shape the success of a game or a new update. Analysis of all games took place 26 Feb–26 March.

Far Far West

• 2-4 player co-op cowboy shooter developed by Evil Raptor

• Pre-release at the time of analysis

• 47k Discord members | 40k+ messages last 30 days (26 Feb–26 Mar)

When we finished our analysis of Far Far West at the end of March, there were 37k members in its Discord server. That’s now jumped to 47k in just over a month as the game has hit early Access, highlighting the popularity of Discord as part of a game’s journey from pre-release to Early Access.

When you join the Discord server, the onboarding process is fairly straightforward. New members can customise which notifications they receive (events, upcoming playtests, polls, and developer updates). After agreeing to the server rules, players must read through a get-started guide that encourages them to check out the FAQs, introduce themselves, and review the latest announcements. This onboarding process helps reduce churn by making sure players know how to communicate in the server.

Players want to chat about bugs as well as report them

The developers share weekly updates in a dedicated dev-updates channel, and there are dedicated channels for sharing screenshots, clips, and fan art alongside channels for bug fixes and feedback. Channels for feedback and ideas are structured as forum chats, but this format doesn’t lend itself well to chatty discussions, resulting in players posting feedback and ideas in the general channel. Similarly, the bugs channel only links to an external reporting template, which could be a potential barrier that limits the number of bugs being reported.

To find out if this was a case, we analysed over 20k player messages posted during the last demo window (22 February–2 March). Nearly 25% of these messages were categorised as a ‘complaint’ or ‘issue’, with players frequently discussing bugs and technical issues in the general chat rather than using formal reporting channels. These discussions often take the form of troubleshooting requests or casual observations of “glitches.” Many users seem to use the general chat as a first-line diagnostic tool to determine if an issue is a known bug or a personal technical failure.

Using Accord, we ran a feature request report on 6000 player messages posted in the general chat in March. 9% of these messages were specific requests for features. This showcases how channels intended for general social chat are being used by players to request specific features for the game, highlighting the importance of regularly monitoring all channels rather than those dedicated to feedback. You can find some examples of suggested features below:

• Better synergies between spellcasting elements, specifically for Cactus and Voodoo types.

• Faster XP gain for secondary weapons

• “Wackier” projectile-based primary weapons

• More punishing enemies for high-mobility builds

• Steam achievements and exclusive cosmetics, such as prestige horse skins

• Standard UI colours and better accessibility options for visually impaired players

General analysis of Far Far West’s community management in Discord

The Discord server has fostered a loyal community that extends beyond the game itself. Players praise the transparency and accessibility of the development team and mods, while noting that the direct interaction from the staff is far beyond what is typical for indie projects. Interestingly, there’s a strong crossover in the community with players from the Deep Rock Galactic and Ultrakill servers, presumably due to the comedic elements of the game.

Better signposting for providing feedback and bug reports could improve the quality and frequency of formal feedback provision and bug reports while alleviating some of the pressure on developers and mods to capture this feedback in general conversations.

Road to Vostok

• Hardcore single-player survival game developed by Antti Leinonen

• Pre-release / Early Access

• 9.3k Discord members | 6k messages last 30 days (26 Feb–26 Mar)

Our analysis of the game is before Road to Vostok entered its Early Access period on April 7, when the Discord server was sitting at 9.3k members. The success of its Early Access period led to that number nearly doubling to 17k members a month later.

Balancing community management responsibilities with game development

As a solo developer, Antii Leinonen needs to carefully manage how much time he spends communicating with players while developing the game and promoting it – a constant balancing act that other solo developers and small studios will be all too familiar with.

Despite that balancing act, Leinonen manages to post in-depth updates which are shared in dedicated news and teaser channels, while social updates are managed by a bot. Similar to Far Far West, channels for suggestions are structured as a forum. While difficult to proactively monitor, this format may make it easier for Leinonen to manage as he can work backwards through messages in chunks. There’s a dedicated feedback area in the Discord where players can post bug reports and suggestions.

To make bug monitoring more efficient, the bugs channel has a set of rules that players are encouraged to read before they submit. One of these requests is that players use the ‘search’ feature to see whether their bug has already been posted, so they can add to that rather than create a new post. Responding to duplicate reports isn’t a good use of time, so encouraging players to follow simple rules such as these is a great way for solo devs and small studios to save time.

The challenges of keeping on top of bug reports

Even with the help of mod support, keeping up with player messages in Discord is especially challenging for small teams and solo developers. Similar to Far Far West, many players are identifying bugs and glitches in the general chat and may not be reporting them via Leinonen’s preferred methods. The fast-paced nature of the general channel will make retroactively monitoring these bug mentions difficult.

Accord analysed 6000 messages posted in March and categorised 347 of these messages as an issue (technical errors, bugs, glitches, flaws, problems affecting gameplay or function). 88% of these messages were posted in the general channel.

General analysis of Road to Vostok’s community management in Discord

Leinonen’s use of bot automation and limited server channels means he still has time to provide lengthy updates and technical deep dives into game systems, which has led to him being praised by players for his transparent communication style. Bugs are addressed with notable transparency, but some players have noted that certain fixes implemented for the Early Access build, such as AI pathfinding and hardware-related performance issues, had not been migrated to the public demo at the time of analysis.

With the game’s Discord server growing at an impressive rate, the next big challenge for Leinonen will be keeping on top of bug fixes and player feedback, and finding the time to analyse that feedback so it can be used to shape future game updates.

Valheim

• Viking survival and sandbox game developed by Iron Gate Studio

• Early Access

• 158k Discord members | 33k messages last 30 days

Valheim has spent more than five years in Early Access with Iron Gate Studio regularly pushing out patches and major content updates in the lead up to its 1.0 release later this year. The Discord server is split into dedicated sections for key information (updates, news, patch notes); media (fan art, memes); help channels (platform-specific bug discussions), and a miscellaneous section where players can share their favourite Viking metal bands for good measure.

At the time of our analysis, the Discord server was sitting at 158k members, and that number had only grown by 1000 a month later. In comparison to games such as Far Far West and Road to Vostok, this suggests that active users in Discord grow alongside a game’s release schedule.

Joining the server, players are asked what channels they’re interested in before being shown the server rules. In the rules, players are specifically told not to message individual developers and to report players for rule-breaking, making the moderation process smoother for the studio and Discord mods.

Quickly identifying and actioning player feedback and bug reports

Valheim has dedicated bug discussion channels for Steam, Xbox, and Mac, where players can discuss and identify potential bugs before they send a bug report via the website. This approach should help reduce the number of duplicate bug reports coming in via the website, as players can work out if their specific bug has already been reported or not. That said, a lot of bug reporting will still take place in wider channels.

We recently launched an Insights tool providing game studios with a comprehensive overview of trending conversation topics according to their importance and message frequency. For busy Discord servers with high message frequencies, this makes the process of monitoring and actioning feedback more efficient, especially when topics are being discussed in high-frequency channels such as general chat.

Gathering feedback from wider conversations

Utilising player feedback extends way beyond bug reports. Wider conversations about game mechanics and specific features provide you with valuable data on how players feel about your game. These conversations can provide practical advice that can be actioned to build better experiences for other players. You should welcome these conversations rather than discourage them, especially as they can provide less-vocal players with an opportunity to share their thoughts on topics they might not have vocalised otherwise.

To get a better idea of what these conversations are and how they can be actioned, let’s take a look at what our Insights tool picked up from Valheim’s Discord server between March 23–27.

• Nearly 50 messages in a conversation about the difficulty of combat encounters in the Ashlands biome, with casual players feeling punished because of frequent deaths, portals breaking, and extended gear recovery times.

• Nearly 40 messages in a conversation about encounters with enemy Golems being “boring”. This is attributed to their high appearance rates, slow counter-weapon DPS, and significant knockback.

• Nearly 20 messages in a conversation about the 5% stat loss upon death being too harsh, especially for higher-level players.

General analysis of Valheim’s community management in Discord

After analysing 3000 messages in March relating to studio updates and community management, players generally perceive the Discord server as being well-managed. They praise the hands-on approach to technical support and quick bug reporting, but less-experienced players feel their frustrations aren’t being addressed regarding certain difficulty spikes in the game.

With over 150k players in the Discord, Iron Gate Studio would benefit from monitoring player discussions in general chat channels. While the presence of dedicated discussion channels for bugs and feedback are great places for players to converse, we regularly see conversations about bugs and feedback taking place outside of dedicated channels.

Crimson Desert

Crimson Desert has been one of the most divisive game releases of the year, but despite its rocky launch, this MMORPG has found a large following of dedicated players who can’t stop playing and talking about the game. At the time of our analysis at the end of March, there were 40k players in the Discord server but a phenomenal 481k messages posted (26 Feb–26 Mar), working out at an average of 12 messages per player every day. An extra 6000 members have joined in the last month.

After surpassing four million sales in just two weeks, the ongoing conversations around the game’s difficulty and lack of handholding continue to entice new players seeking a challenging game. But with so much to see and do in Crimson Desert and so little handholding, there’s no shortage of player questions, which explains the high volume of messages in the game’s Discord.

The dangers of unmoderated Discord channels

There’s no hiding from the fact that Crimson Desert suffered a rocky launch, with the game’s technical performance and clunky controller settings being a major point of contention between players. The game’s development studio, Pearl Abyss, has addressed most of these issues with new updates and patches, with players praising the studio for its timely response to addressing their concerns. Four patches were released within the first week of the game’s release.

Unfortunately, many players feel this focus on game development has been at the expense of moderating the Discord server. Analysis of over 9000 messages posted March 20–27 found feedback regarding Discord management is overwhelmingly negative. A recurring sentiment among players is that the server lacks active moderation, leading to what many describe as a “toxic” environment. Users reported frequent arguments over religion, racism, and a high volume of “beggars” asking for free game codes. While some users were eventually banned, many feel the response time is too slow and that the server needs more dedicated admins.

We explored this further by analysing 3000 messages categorised under the topic of ‘Community’, and two of the top three complaints related to a lack of moderation.

General analysis of Crimson Desert’s community management in Discord

It’s worth highlighting that the messages we analysed were in English, and these moderation issues, while severe, could be bigger than the studio realises, as there are more than 10 different channels for non-English language support. Creating localised channels is a great way for players who don’t speak English to socialise and build communities around your game, but they need active moderation with someone who speaks that language. The developers of Valheim have said this is why they don’t have non-English Discord channels when asked by their players.

Pearl Abyss needs to establish a mod presence within the Discord to build a positive community around their game. In the absence of moderation in the Discord, players are doing what they can to foster a positive environment by supporting each other with guides and advice, but conversations can be and are being derailed by the presence of trolls.

How to Build Stronger Communities That Positively Impact Performance

Developers who focus on building positive communities in Discord by transparently communicating updates and acknowledging feedback improve the chances of players sticking around. Players are often drawn to new games because of social circles; if those social circles existed within Discord but eventually disbanded, there’s a high likelihood that this will cause in-game churn as players follow their friends.

We also know from our own research that your loudest Discord members are likely to leave reviews. 200 positive reviews on Steam for Crimson Desert used the same username in Discord and had posted more than 10 messages in the server. Studios that focus on building positive communities in Discord and engage with players will see that effort reciprocated in future reviews.

Here’s a general overview of other tips that can help you build better communities in Discord:

Do

• Provide clear onboarding instructions for new members. Let them choose what channels and notifications they want to see but don’t overwhelm them with information.

• Ensure they’ve agreed to the rules and familiarised themselves with key information such as FAQs, by providing a completion checklist in onboarding instructions.

• Provide discussion channels for bug reports and feedback requests to encourage conversations that you can use for data.

• Make sure you communicate with your members at least once a week by providing updates on development milestones or wider community plans and events.

• Make sure you’ve got proper moderation in place to enforce rules and support new members looking for advice. A dedicated ‘help’ or ‘questions’ channel will encourage more passionate and vocal members to support others.

• Don’t create channels for the sake of it. Make sure you’ve got the resources within the studio to actively engage with players. Don’t create a Discord server if you don’t.

• There’s never a ‘perfect’ time to create a Discord server, but creating one once your game has been revealed gives you a head start on building a community. Just make sure you’re regularly communicating with them.

Don’t

• Create a Discord and think you can manage it solely through bot automation. Members want to know you’re listening to and engaging with them.

• Do use bots for specific channels that can be automated, where you’re sharing updates from other platforms.

• Create a Discord server without a clear plan or rules in place.

• Definitely don’t create a Discord without agreeing on whose responsibility it is within the studio to manage it and communicate with members.

• Forget about Discord if people responsible for managing it leave your studio. Then it becomes your responsibility. There are too many examples of social/community managers being let go from a game studio and Discord servers being abandoned. This will cause player churn.

• Create a Discord server without having a pipeline to capture and action feedback. The same goes for bug reports. Automation tools can help here, especially for time-strapped studios.

Lastly, here’s a snapshot of the biggest wins and woes shaping player communities this month.

Community Wins

• Epic Games has started offering refunds to players who had previously purchased in-game items based on the US singer D4VD, who has been charged with first-degree murder.

• Sandfall Interactive celebrated the first year anniversary of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 with a free update adding new hairstyles for characters.

• Players can’t get enough of Crimson Desert, which shows no signs of slowing down on Steam despite being a single-player game.

Community Woes

• A huge balance update just hit ARC Raiders and it goes to show you can’t please everyone, as a large portion of the community is complaining about weapon nerfs.

• PlayStation fans are calling Sony’s 30-day online DRM check-in for its games “a disgrace”. This new update means players will have to keep their consoles online every 30 days or they won’t be able to play digitally downloaded games.

• Blizzard has issued a formal apology after the latest update for World of Warcraft contained too many bugs.

Will Marathon Succeed? Community Analysis of Marathon’s Server Slam & First 24 Hours

Marathon is the new team-based extraction shooter from Bungie, the game studio responsible for the original Halo games and Destiny. This is Bungie’s first major new project in nearly ten years, and Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition of the studio in 2022 means there’s a lot of pressure riding on Marathon’s success, which will likely need to reach millions of players to be considered a commercial success.

No pressure, then. The global launch of Marathon on March 5 comes at a time when a growing number of new live-service shooters are struggling to reach a target audience of players who are already heavily invested in games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, Battlefield, and most recently, Arc Raiders, another extraction shooter and arguably Marathon’s biggest competitor with 14 million copies sold since its release in October, 2025.

This creates an environment where some new releases are dying on arrival. Sony’s 2024 release of Concord was shut down just two weeks after launch, and the recently released Highguard, a live-service shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, is shutting down on March 12, two months after its release in January.

Will Marathon eventually follow the same fate? Or does Bungie’s new shooter show promising signs for the future?

To find out, we analysed over 70,000 messages from the game’s official Discord server during the game’s Server Slam and 24-hour launch window.

Marathon’s Server Slam: How Do Players Feel After Their First Hands-On Experience?

Marathon’s Server Slam took place February 26–March 2, offering players a free trial experience of the game ahead of its global release. No sign-ups or pre-orders of the game were needed to jump in and certain elements of progression such as cosmetic customisation and loot carry over to the full release of the game.

Nearly 70,000 messages were posted during the Server Slam, with the most popular topics as follows:

Gameplay (13k messages)

The most prominent discussion during this period centers on the game’s Time to Kill (TTK). Hundreds of different players engaged in heated debates regarding whether the current lethality levels are appropriate for an extraction shooter, with some arguing it’s too low while others say it encourages more tactical gameplay.

The PvE vs PvP balance and AI difficulty were also frequently discussed. A significant point of contention was the difficulty of the UESC bots, which many describe as “brutal,” “bullet sponges,” or “aimbots” that drain resources like ammo and heals before a PvP encounter even begins. While some players are requesting PvE modes, others argue PvP is fundamental to the game’s identity.

One of the most major points we highlighted here – although not a significant point of discussion – was the game’s onboarding and user interface. Approximately 50 players said they feel “lost” or “aimless” due to an inadequate tutorial. Other common complaints include the complexity of the implant system, the difficulty of finding specific contract objectives on the map, and UI clutter that makes reading stats or managing inventory during a run frustrating.

Items (6k messages)

UI clarity and item identification were major issues for players, linking back to previously mentioned discussions around UI clutter and poor onboarding. Over 100 unique players expressed their frustration regarding item icons and inventory management, with a common complaint being that many items, specifically implants, cores, and weapon mods, look nearly identical, “like USB sticks.” As such, there are numerous requests for unique icons, symbols, or better color-coding to help players identify items at a glance. Bungie should work to address this to avoid player churn.

Some other major issues relating to items are consumables and resource management. Resource scarcity was a recurring theme for over 50 players, particularly regarding healing items and shield rechargers. Many find the cost of meds in the shop to be “unreasonable” and the drop rates in the wild to be too low, leading to “gear fear” where players are hesitant to bring in high-tier loadouts without sufficient healing support.

Performance (6k messages)

During the selected period, players focused heavily on technical performance issues, with poor PC optimization, specifically regarding high CPU utilisation and low GPU usage, being the most prominent theme. Over 140 different players discussed the game’s inefficient use of hardware resources, saying CPU often reached 100% utilisation while the GPU remained underutilised, often at 20–30%. Players noted that changing graphics settings from “Ultra” to “Low” often resulted in negligible FPS gains, suggesting an engine-level bottleneck.

Console players, particularly those on PS5 Pro, expressed disappointment over being locked to 60 FPS, arguing that 120 FPS should be the standard for a competitive shooter in 2026. PC players also shared their struggles to maintain stable frame rates above 100 FPS, even on high-end hardware.

70 different players reported critical technical issues. A major point of discussion was the Nvidia “Game Ready” driver (595.59), which reportedly caused hardware instability and overheating, leading many to recommend rolling back to previous versions. AMD users also reported significant rendering bugs, such as “black textures” or geometry failing to load on older cards like the RX 580.

Community (6k messages)

Similar to community discussions prior to the launch of the Server Slam, more than 200 unique players discussed the prevalence of negativity, “ragebaiting,” and coordinated trolling within the community. Many long-term fans and active players expressed exhaustion with what they perceive as a “hate train” fueled by social media algorithms, streamers, and comparisons to other titles like Concord or Arc Raiders. We see this as a promising sign for the game as it actually shows a core demographic of players rallying together in support of the game.

Balance (5k messages)

Outside of the heated discussions around Marathon’s TTK, approximately 150 players focused their concerns on balancing issues with two powerful weapons: the WSTR (Double Barrel Shotgun) and the Longshot sniper rifle. The WSTR is frequently described as “broken” or “overtuned” due to its ability to two-tap players even through high-tier shields at close range, while snipers are criticised for their one-tap headshot potential, with many players specifically calling for a nerf to thermal scope accessibility.

Nearly 50 players discussed the need for refined matchmaking systems. There are frequent requests for “Aggression-Based Matchmaking” (ABMM) to separate “kill-on-sight” players from those focusing on contracts. Additionally, solo and duo players expressed frustration at being matched against coordinated three-man squads, arguing that the fast TTK makes 1v3 encounters statistically insurmountable for the average player. Again, this is something that Bungie will need to closely monitor to avoid player churn.

Positive Feedback

Players overwhelmingly praised the core combat loop, frequently citing Bungie’s signature “gunplay” as the standout feature of the Server Slam. The mechanical feel of the weapons, described as “weighty” and “punchy,” provided a satisfying experience that many felt was unmatched in the extraction shooter genre. This sentiment was echoed across dozens of messages, with players noting that even when they lost gear, the act of shooting and moving felt inherently rewarding.

A significant portion of the community enjoyed the game’s complexity and the “click” moment that occurred after several hours of play, alleviating some of the potential concerns around player churn. Unlike more casual extraction shooters, players appreciated that the game required thought, awareness, and a genuine effort to learn mechanics like heat management and shell-specific abilities.

Areas of Improvement

The performance issues could be a major issue for player retention if Bungie doesn’t address them soon after launch. Similarly, criticisms around onboarding could lead to new players who aren’t familiar with the gameplay mechanics of extraction shooters to drop the game if they find it too confusing.

• UI/UX Polish: Streamlining inventory and mod descriptions to reduce early-game friction.

• TTK Monitoring: While some love the lethality, others find it too fast to allow for counterplay, especially when facing “broken” weapons like the WSTR shotgun or snipers with thermal scopes. Balancing the lethality of these weapons will ensure “skill expression” isn’t overshadowed by “first-to-see” wins.

• Onboarding: Improving the tutorial to better explain the value of contracts and resource management to reduce potential churn.

• Technical Issues and Optimisation: Bungie needs to fix performance issues on PC, especially as many die-hard shooter players (an important target audience) will be playing on PC.

Marathon’s Server Slam: General Consensus

The general response to the Server Slam was overwhelmingly positive, with a significant number of players reporting they were “hooked” or “addicted” after just a few hours of play. While initial impressions for some were skeptical, the gameplay loop proved highly effective at converting testers into buyers. Data shows a high frequency of messages regarding pre-orders, with many players specifically stating the Server Slam convinced them to purchase the Deluxe Edition.

The sentiment from the Server Slam suggests a strong launch with a dedicated, high-skill player base. The game is successfully carving out a niche between the “casual” experience of Arc Raiders and the “hardcore” suffering of Tarkov. The high frequency of players reporting 20-40+ hours of playtime over a single weekend indicates strong retention potential.

That said, there are still several issues with performance and onboarding that could result in player churn if they aren’t addressed quickly by Bungie.

Did Marathon’s Server Slam Players Convert to Sales?

Marathon’s Server Slam peaked at 143k players according to SteamDB, falling short of ARC Raiders’ 193k during the Open Alpha. That said, the game managed to climb all the way to No.3 in pre-sales on the Steam US Chart during the Server Slam before eventually landing at No.1. According to analysis from AlineaAnalytics, Marathon is currently sitting at around 1.2 million total wishlists, nearly 20% of which were placed during the Server Slam.

This analysis aligns with what we’ve seen from player messages on Discord, with Marathon’s Server Slam functioning as a highly effective conversion tool. Approximately 50 players explicitly stated they preordered the game after playing the trial. Discussions highlight a ‘hooked’ sentiment, where initial skepticism or lack of interest was replaced by excitement after several hours of gameplay.

Player Feedback from Marathon’s First 24 Hours

Over 20,000 unique messages were posted during the game’s first 24 hours. Concurrent users on Steam peaked at 88k on March 5, but will likely increase as more players dive into the game over the weekend.

Analysis of player feedback indicates that many performance issues identified during the Server Slam persist into the launch build. Using Accord’s ‘Insights’ feature, an always-on monitoring tool that detects spikes in conversations around specific topics and categories, we’ve categorised the most prominent issues below according to their message frequency and severity.

Hardware Optimisation

While a minority of players report improved optimization, a significant volume of messages highlights ongoing struggles with CPU utilisation, and some players claim inconsistent frame rates and stuttering has worsened since the Server Slam.

Connection and Stability Issues - The Weasel Error

Over 200 unique players are reporting a near-total inability to play the game due to constant disconnects labelled as “error code: weasel,” an error message used by Bungie to indicate networking issues. The frequency of these disconnects is a major point of frustration, with many players stating they are kicked every 30 to 60 seconds. Due to the unplayable state of the game, more than 10% of players said they are discussing or actively pursuing refunds through Steam.

Critical Crashes and Kernel Errors

Nearly 20 players reported frequent crashes, often occurring immediately upon finding a match or during exfiltration. A specific technical conflict was identified involving Focusrite audio interfaces and MIDI software, resulting in a “KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION” Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) or total system freezes. This could be a major issue for the game’s marketing as content creators who aren’t using USB mics will likely be running their gear through Focusrite interfaces. This could transform into a potential PR disaster if a major content creator encounters the issue.

UI and Console UX Affecting Inventory Management

Inventory management and looting systems lack the expected drag-and-drop functionality for items and attachments. Players report this behaviour across stash, loadout, and vault interactions, leading to perceived inefficiency and clunkiness. Console players report that the cursor speed in menus is prohibitively slow, making mid-match inventory management dangerous. Additionally, the lack of a “multi-select” option for selling items is a major point of friction for inventory-heavy gameplay.

Has Marathon’s Launch Gone Well?

The launch of Marathon has seen a polarized but generally positive initial reception among those who purchased the game. While Steam reviews are reported to be over 90% positive, the community is deeply divided between enthusiastic “glazers” and vocal critics. Many players report being deeply “hooked” by the gunplay, lore, and aesthetic, with some logging 12-hour sessions on day one.

Bungie’s next big challenge herein will be addressing the issues we’ve highlighted above. Despite the positive reviews, there is a substantial risk of player churn due to several critical issues identified by players, namely technical performance, connection errors and UI/UX friction.

Whether Marathon will reach the levels of commercial success that Bungie and Sony are hoping for remains to be seen. While it’s still early days, the consensus among players is that Marathon will likely settle into a niche market similar to Hunt: Showdown rather than achieving massive mainstream popularity. There is significant anxiety regarding the Steam player count, but others argue that the console player base is likely much larger and will sustain the game – something we’ll learn as figures are released.

For now, Marathon isn’t off to the strongest of starts, but there’s a good foundation here to build on if Bungie can address the major issues around performance and UI.

Lastly, here’s a snapshot of the biggest wins and woes shaping player communities this month.

Community Wins

• The next update for Hunt: Showdown will hide supply and extraction points from players during its Devil’s Trail event, adding an element of surprise for die-hard players.

• Resident Evil: Requiem has surpassed five million sales, making it one of the most successful Resident Evil launches of all time.

• The latest patch for Outer Worlds 2 fixes many of the most commonly cited issues with the game, including a major issue affecting a bugged achievement.

Community Woes

• Skate is locking a map area behind a paywall after promising no map areas would be locked behind paywalls. Players aren’t happy and are now accusing EA of gaslighting them after editing FAQ sections to remove previous promises to not paywall content.

• Highguard is shutting down, but will get a final “farewell” patch to reward players for their support before the game comes offline on March 12.

• There are some major changes coming to the second season of Black Ops 7, but the community feels underwhelmed by the lack of new perks and no new elite enemies.

The new mechanic triggered widespread backlash across social platforms and forums, with players fiercely debating its impact on fairness, grind, and the game’s core identity. To understand what went wrong — and why — we analysed more than 50,000 community messages, uncovering the key pain points driving player frustration.

The Expedition Project: A Fresh Approach to Progression Wipes

As an extraction shooter, the goal of ARC Raiders is to drop into maps, gather loot, complete quests/challenges and survive to make it out alive by cooperating with or taking down other players. Players can also upgrade their character by levelling up and unlocking new skills, crafting or upgrading new weapons and gear along the way.

Most extraction shooters implement periodic progression wipes to combat gear inflation and keep the game appealing for new players. As an example, Escape from Tarkov uses a mandatory progression wipe every six to eight months to essentially reset the game. ARC Raiders does things a little differently via its ‘Expedition Project’ system, a source of popular debate amongst the community.

Embark Studios announced how the Expedition Project would work in a pre-release October blog post, but in short, once a player reaches level 20, they can embark on ‘Expeditions,’ an optional progression wipe where players “lose anything inherent to their character’s progress,” in return for permanent account unlocks, unique cosmetics and account buffs. Ultimately, Embark Studios says this allows highly engaged players to experience the game fresh with benefits while enjoying plenty of bragging rights in the process.

Expedition Project Details Cause Concerns

In a blog post published on 6 December, Embark Studios revealed more information on the Expedition system, as well as some of the specific rewards and requirements tied to progression resets. The big focus was on how players could earn up to five new skill points tied to their stash value (the combined value of their items and in-game currency, coins). This is where the problems started.

Players were told they would need a stash value of five million to unlock all five skill points. To put that into perspective, even hardcore players would need to spend a minimum of ten hours farming in high-risk areas to build that amount of stash. But to make matters worse, players had less than two weeks to reach that five million value as the Expedition window closed on 22 December.

Players weren’t happy, as data from Accord shows.

• From 1 December to 31 December, Accord tracked more than 50,000 messages specifically relating to the Expedition system.

• 20% of these messages focused on the timing and communication of the Expedition details. Accord automatically creates new sub-topics according to trending topics in Discord, and a new sub-topic for ‘Timing and Communication of Expedition Details’ was created with over 10,000 messages.

• 30% of messages were related to questions; nearly 25% of messages were related to complaints; 13% of messages were related to requests, and 10% of messages were related to issues.

Player Pulse: How Players Felt About the First ARC Raiders Expedition

Analysis of ARC Raiders Discord messages sent 6–12 December shows us which sub-topics related to the Expedition were generating the highest volume of messages.

The Five Million Credit Controversy

400 unique players specifically cited the late timing of the announcement and five million stash requirement, arguing the threshold is too high for casual players and was announced too close to the departure window. Many argue that this requirement turns the game into a “second job” and rewards only “no-lifers” or streamers.

Reset Mechanics and Reward Clarity

Nearly 200 unique players sought clarification on what exactly is lost during the Expedition reset. Key points of confusion include whether workbench levels are reset to level 1 or removed entirely, whether quest progress is wiped, and if the bonus skill points raise the level cap from 75 to 80 or simply provide a head start at level 1.

Impact on Gameplay and the “Free Kit” Meta

Over 100 unique players noted a drastic shift in the game’s atmosphere following the Expedition announcement. Players reported that lobbies were dominated by “free loadouts” and “rats” who avoid using high-tier gear to preserve their stash value for the 5 million goal. This has led to an increase in “kill on sight” (KOS) behavior and extract camping, as players scramble for any possible value. Many complain that the “magic” of cooperative play has been lost, as players are now incentivized to hoard resources rather than engage in high-stakes boss fights or help newer raiders.

Blueprint Retention and Muling Concerns

Nearly 100 unique players discussed the loss of blueprints during the Expedition reset. A significant portion of the conversation revolves around “muling”—transferring blueprints to friends or secondary accounts that are not resetting to retrieve them after the wipe. Some players are calling for a block on this behaviour to maintain the integrity of the reset, while others argue that blueprints should be permanent unlocks to avoid a tedious re-grind every season.

Community Feedback: How to Improve Future Expeditions

In an interview with GamesRadar, ARC Raiders design lead, Virgil Watkins, says roughly one million players finished the first Expedition. That’s less than 10% of players. Watkins also said that “around 40 to 45%” of players earned the five million Stash value needed to unlock all five skill points, but admits “[Embark] probably came out a bit late with the five million coin requirement.”

ARC Raiders’ Expedition system isn’t going anywhere for the time being, but Watkins does say it will change and improve. “This system will change,” he adds. “We’re not precious about it. We’ll keep adjusting to make sure it is properly incentivizing players.”

In the wake of major updates and game changes like this, listening to your community can be a great way of gathering feedback that can shape future system changes. Embark is listening as it’s already aware of the criticism around the five million stash value, but we used Accord to gather further suggestions on how future Expeditions could be improved.

• Base rewards on total value extracted over the season rather than final stash value to prevent players from hoarding and playing with free loadouts.

• Allow players to pick a small section of blueprints that they can keep, as the high value of some blueprints means players don’t want to embark on Expeditions. Alternatively, let players buy/earn blueprints back through level/quest/price-gating. This should be a priority, as many players are already ​​using alternate (”mule”) accounts or friends who aren’t wiping to store their blueprints and high-value gear.

• Ensure details of future Expeditions are communicated in greater detail and with more notice.

• Dedicated servers for PvE and PvP bearing in mind the requirements around Expedition goals.

• Consider dropping permanent skill points and stash space as permanent rewards, as accumulating gameplay advantages like this risk becoming unfair over time.

• Some players are suggesting mandatory wipes rather than optional ones. Given the immense popularity of ARC Raiders, we don’t think this would work with the game’s playerbase.

• Cosmetic rewards should have more colour options and come with supporting cinematics for ultimate bragging rights.

• Some players suggested making certain loot craftable at work benches (Steel Springs - Oil - Simple Gun Parts - Wires) but this could create an unfair gameplay advantage.

Lastly, here’s a snapshot of the biggest wins and woes shaping player communities this month.

Community Wins

• Call of Duty fans are happy after Treyarch announced the fan-favourite escort mode ‘Safeguard’ will return in the second season of Black Ops 7, following a seven-year hiatus from the series!

• A new update for Guild Wars has introduced an ‘Ironman’ mode inspired by a community-driven challenge where players must earn all their skills and items without the relief of player trading or in-game traders. This follows the success of similar modes in World of Warcraft and, most recently, RuneScape.

• Monster Hunter Wilds has been the subject of heavy criticism from PC players due to major platform-specific issues with the game, but it looks like the most serious issues have now been addressed in a recent patch.

Community Woes

• Wildlight Entertainment’s hero shooter Highguard has been having a rough time ever since it was revealed as the final game at The Game Awards, a slot typically reserved for major announcements. After debuting with nearly 100k players at launch, concurrent players have fallen by 90%.

• A lack of notable improvements in the latest patch for Football Manager 2026 is making players suspect Sports Interactive has already moved its focus to the sequel.

• Embark has rolled out a new ban system for cheaters in ARC Raiders, but some players feel it’s too lenient and doesn’t go far enough to punish those who are ruining the game for others.