Marathon Server Slam: A Player-Focused Guide to the Open Preview Weekend

The Server Slam is your practical dress rehearsal for marathon: a concentrated preview built to test systems under real load and give players an early taste of the game. If you plan to jump in, this weekend determines which areas of the launch experience get stress-tested, which cosmetics are exclusive to early participants, and how your time spent now will translate into rewards when the full game arrives on March 5.

Why players should care about this weekend

This isn’t a marketing stunt; it’s an engineering exercise with direct player benefits. The developer will be standing by throughout the weekend to monitor performance, address issues, and make live adjustments—when something breaks, that yields data to improve stability and the player experience ahead of launch. For players who want to be battle-ready at launch, the Server Slam is also the only way to earn certain cosmetics that will remain exclusive to participants.

Marathon Server Slam: dates, times and platforms

The Server Slam runs from February 26 at 10: 00 AM PT (1: 00 PM ET) through March 2 at 10: 00 AM PT (1: 00 PM ET). The preview is available on Steam (PC), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with cross-play and cross-save enabled. Participation is free for those platforms during the open preview weekend.

What’s playable, what’s held back

The Server Slam is explicitly a slice of the full game—not every map or feature is included. It’s both a marketing beta and a technical stress test: players will encounter PvE and PvP encounters across available maps that include futuristic research facilities and surface environments, with the Cryo Archive and additional maps reserved for launch or Season 1. At full launch the game will add two more maps—Outpost and Cryo Archive—and the sixth Runner Shell, Thief, will be available at launch but not during the Server Slam. Ranked mode and broader progression arrive when Season 1 kicks off.

• Preview scope: selected maps and modes (not the full game)
• Launch additions: Outpost, Cryo Archive, Runner Shell Thief
• Season 1 additions: Cryo Archive activation and Ranked mode

It’s easy to overlook, but the team framing this weekend as a stress test explains why some content is intentionally absent: fewer variables make performance issues easier to isolate and fix.

Rewards, progression and how they carry to launch

Playing during the Server Slam will bank cosmetic and loot rewards that are delivered when the game launches on March 5. Everyone who completes the introductory mission during the weekend will unlock two exclusive cosmetics—a Beta. exe emblem and a Complex Study player background—reserved for Server Slam participants only. Progress during the weekend also unlocks caches for launch:

• Complete your first mission: Standard Arrival Cache
• Reach Runner Level 10: Enhanced Arrival Cache (Green)
• Reach Runner Level 30: Deluxe Arrival Cache (Blue)

Rewards will be distributed once Marathon launches on March 5; rollout may take time, so players who don’t immediately see items in their inbox should expect a brief delay. If you watch streamers during the Server Slam, you can also snag cosmetic rewards tied to streams—full claiming details will be available on the game’s support pages.

Quick micro Q& A for players

Q: Who offered beginner guidance ahead of the weekend?
Game director Joe Ziegler shared 11 tips for beginners in the hours before the Server Slam kicked off.

Q: Is the Server Slam the final beta?
The event is described as a final open preview weekend and a server stress test ahead of the March 5 launch.

Q: Will cross-play and cross-save be active?
Yes—cross-play and cross-save are enabled for the Server Slam on the supported platforms.

Genre context and what this debut signals

Extraction shooters have been moving toward the mainstream; lineage cited for the subgenre includes the DayZ mod for ARMA 2, with later entries like Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown refining the formula. A recent peer, ARC Raiders, added accessibility and polish and saw a fast-rise reception. Marathon positions itself as another entry in that trajectory—players scavenge, fight PvE and PvP foes, and aim to extract with loot that persists into future sessions.

For timeline context: Marathon’s setting is on Tau Ceti IV in the year 2893—stated as 99 years after the original Marathon and centuries after the colony’s founding—an explicit world-building anchor that links this entry to a longer fictional history.

Here’s the part that matters: if you want exclusive cosmetics, early practice with the systems, and to contribute to a smoother March 5 launch, joining the Server Slam is the most direct way to do that. The real question now is how server stability data gathered this weekend will change the launch-day experience.

One final note—watching failures as productive data is a small but telling signal about the developer’s priorities for launch preparation; if fixes follow the weekend, players will notice a measurable difference on March 5.