Bungie just threw Marathon playtesters a curveball. The closed technical test that was supposed to end October 28 has been extended by two additional days, pushing the new end date to October 29. But there’s a catch. On October 28 at 10 AM Pacific Time, servers went down for about an hour and when they came back up, everything was gone. Vaults wiped, gear erased, progression reset to zero.
Before you panic, this is intentional and actually exciting. Bungie is calling these extra two days Dangerous Days, the same name they used when extending the closed alpha test back in May. This isn’t about giving players more time to grind. It’s about pushing the game’s backend infrastructure to its breaking point to see what happens when systems fail under extreme stress.
What Dangerous Days Actually Means
Backend stress testing is exactly what it sounds like. Bungie’s engineers are deliberately overloading servers, intentionally breaking things, and tweaking live systems to identify failure points before the game launches to millions of players. This is separate from regular playtesting where you’re checking if gameplay feels good. Stress testing asks questions like – what happens when 50,000 players try logging in simultaneously? Does matchmaking collapse when we simulate a DDoS attack? Can the economy handle exploits we haven’t thought of yet?
The extension was exclusively confirmed by The Game Post on October 26, giving playtesters just over a day’s notice that their hard-earned loot was about to vanish. That short notice is deliberate. Stress testing works best when player behavior stays organic rather than everyone hoarding resources or avoiding the game because they know a wipe is coming.
The Compensation Package
Losing all your progress feels bad even when you know it’s temporary test data. Bungie softened the blow with some serious compensation. Every player received 7,777 credits, the in-game currency, to spend freely during these final two days. That’s enough to experiment with different loadouts, purchase cosmetics you couldn’t afford before, and generally treat the remainder of the test as a sandbox.
More importantly, Bungie added a free cache to the Wares menu that can be redeemed unlimited times. Each redemption gives a random assortment of loot, meaning you can gear up instantly instead of spending hours grinding back to where you were. This transforms the Dangerous Days period from frustrating do-over into chaotic experimentation where everyone has access to everything.
Why Wipe Everything
The full reset serves multiple purposes beyond just stress testing infrastructure. With everyone starting fresh simultaneously and unlimited loot access, Bungie can observe how thousands of players interact with early-game systems when they’re not spread across different progression stages. They can track economy balance when everyone suddenly has credits to burn. And they can identify bugs that only appear when large populations hit specific milestones at the same time.
The wipe also resets any exploits or unintended advantages players discovered during the first six days. Some testers inevitably find ways to farm resources faster than intended or glitch into areas they shouldn’t access. Wiping progress puts everyone on equal footing for the final push, giving cleaner data about how systems perform under legitimate use.
The Pattern From Alpha Testing
This isn’t Bungie’s first Dangerous Days rodeo. When they extended the closed alpha test in May, they used the exact same naming and similar tactics. That extension added two days beyond the original May 4 end date, pushing it to May 6. During those extra days, Bungie unlocked nearly all faction upgrades for every player starting May 5, then increased AI reinforcements and made incursion events appear in every match on May 6.
The May extension came with explicit warnings that players should expect disconnections, higher latency, and lost loot between May 4 and the new end time. That’s exactly what stress testing looks like from the player side – things break on purpose so engineers can observe failure modes and recovery behavior. The fact that Bungie is repeating this strategy for the technical test suggests the alpha stress testing provided valuable data worth collecting again at a larger scale.
What Players Should Expect
If the May alpha Dangerous Days period is any indication, these final two days will be messy. Server stability is not guaranteed. You might get booted mid-match. Latency could spike randomly as engineers push systems beyond normal parameters. Loot you extract might disappear due to intentional database stress. None of this is accidental or a sign the game is broken. It’s controlled chaos designed to reveal problems before launch.
For playtesters, this creates a unique opportunity. You’re seeing behind the curtain of how modern online games get built. Most players only experience the polished final product, never witnessing the deliberate breaking and fixing that happens during development. Dangerous Days lets you participate in that process, contributing data that shapes how Marathon’s infrastructure gets hardened before millions of players descend on launch day.
Marathon’s Rocky Development Path
These extensions and stress tests represent progress for a game that’s had a turbulent journey. Marathon was first revealed during the 2023 PlayStation Showcase, generating massive hype as Bungie’s follow-up to Destiny. But after alpha testing earlier this year yielded lukewarm player reception, Bungie delayed the game indefinitely in June, removing its planned September 23 launch date.
The closed technical test running from October 22 to now-October 29 marks Marathon’s return to public view after months of silence. Bungie describes this as an important checkpoint testing improvements since the alpha, including three maps, five runner shells, proximity chat, retuned combat pacing, solo queue, and deeper environmental storytelling. The positive buzz from leaks and early impressions suggests the extra development time paid off.
The Bigger Picture of Stress Testing
Most players never think about backend infrastructure until it fails catastrophically. Launch day disasters like Diablo 3’s Error 37, SimCity’s always-online debacle, or Cyberpunk 2077’s meltdown happen because stress testing either didn’t occur or didn’t push systems hard enough to reveal critical flaws. By running dedicated Dangerous Days periods, Bungie is trying to catch those catastrophic failure modes in controlled environments rather than during launch week when millions of angry players are watching.
Modern online games are staggeringly complex. Marathon needs to handle matchmaking across platforms, maintain economy balance, process thousands of concurrent extraction runs, sync player inventories across servers, prevent cheating, and do all of this while remaining responsive and stable. Any one of these systems can become a bottleneck that brings everything crashing down. Stress testing identifies which component breaks first under extreme load so engineers can reinforce it before it becomes a launch day headline.
What Happens After October 29
Once the technical test concludes, Bungie has promised a public update on Marathon’s development. That update will likely include feedback from the technical test, adjustments being made based on player input, and hopefully some indication of when the game might actually launch. The indefinite delay announced in June left fans in limbo, and Bungie needs to rebuild confidence that Marathon will eventually ship in a state worth playing.
The positive reception to this technical test compared to the alpha’s mixed feedback suggests Bungie is moving in the right direction. Extending for stress testing indicates confidence that the game is stable enough to push to breaking points. If the servers hold up reasonably well during Dangerous Days despite intentional abuse, that’s a strong signal Marathon’s infrastructure can handle real-world launch conditions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Bungie wipe progress in the Marathon test?
The wipe was intentional for backend stress testing during the Dangerous Days extension. Starting everyone fresh with unlimited resources lets Bungie observe how systems perform when thousands of players hit milestones simultaneously and spend resources at scale.
What are Dangerous Days in Marathon?
Dangerous Days is Bungie’s name for extended testing periods focused on backend stress testing. Engineers deliberately push servers beyond normal limits, break systems intentionally, and observe failure modes to identify problems before launch.
Did players get anything for losing their progress?
Yes, Bungie compensated with 7,777 free credits and added an unlimited-use free cache in the Wares menu that gives random loot. This lets players quickly gear back up and experiment with different builds during the final days.
When does the Marathon technical test end?
The test was extended from October 28 to October 29, 2025. It originally ran from October 22 to 28 before the two-day Dangerous Days extension was announced.
Will there be server problems during Dangerous Days?
Yes, intentionally. Stress testing means pushing systems to failure. Players should expect potential disconnections, latency spikes, and possible lost loot as Bungie deliberately overloads infrastructure to find breaking points.
Is this the same as what happened during the alpha?
Yes, Bungie used the same Dangerous Days naming and strategy when they extended the closed alpha test in May. That extension also included progression unlocks, increased AI difficulty, and intentional stress testing of backend systems.
When will Marathon actually launch?
Unknown. Bungie delayed the game indefinitely in June 2025 after alpha feedback. They’ve promised a public update on development after this technical test concludes, which may provide timeline information.
Can I still join the technical test?
No, the test is closed and under NDA. Applications closed October 16, and only invited players across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC can participate.
Trust the Process
Losing all your progress in a game test feels bad in the moment, even when you know it’s temporary data that was always going to disappear. But Dangerous Days represents exactly the kind of thorough development process that separates smooth launches from disasters. Bungie could have just ended the test as scheduled, patted themselves on the back, and hoped for the best. Instead, they’re deliberately breaking their own game to find weaknesses before millions of players do it accidentally.
For the playtesters participating in these final chaotic days, remember that every disconnect, every bug, every weird failure mode you experience is valuable data. You’re not just playing a game early, you’re actively contributing to making it better. The servers might be on fire, but that fire is controlled and purposeful. And when Marathon eventually launches and the servers stay up under massive load, you’ll know you helped stress test the infrastructure that’s keeping everything running.
The extension to October 29 might seem like a small change, just two extra days. But those two Dangerous Days could be the difference between a smooth launch and a catastrophic failure that dominates gaming headlines for all the wrong reasons. Bungie learned hard lessons from Destiny’s rocky launches. They’re applying those lessons here, and the willingness to push boundaries and break things during testing suggests Marathon might actually be ready when it finally arrives. Whenever that is.