You're safe: Buying Marathon on Steam no longer downloads Destiny 2 automatically

After three years of waiting, in part because of Bungie returning to the drawing board following its contentious public alpha and Arc Raiders' success, Marathon is almost here. For real this time—it's coming March 5, pre-orders are open, and you can even buy a fancy shmancy collector's edition.

In the meantime, Bungie's 'money maker' Destiny 2's been in a consistent decline since the release of the widely panned Lightfall expansion. Sadly, even during its prime, it felt like an uphill battle to recommend and convince other people to actually play Destiny.

Bungie must've felt the same way, clearly, as it's just had to make an all-time great patch note to a back-end Steam bug: "We've resolved an issue where Destiny 2 would begin installing after pre-ordering Marathon on Steam." Now that's a bold strategy to boost the player count.

Don't worry though, as mentioned, the haunting spirit of Destiny 2 hiding in Marathon has now been exorcised, so if you're on the fence about pre-ordering, you won't be forced to install or play the languishing looter-shooter too.

My only guess as to how something like this would happen is potentially due to the Destiny 2: Marathon Pack pre-order bundle. Since this is an exclusive cosmetic bundle for Destiny but acquired by pre-ordering Marathon, this Steam bug must've worked on the assumption that you'd want to try out your new 'freebies'. Most don't, it seems, with many jokingly that pre-ordering Marathon "installs a virus". A bit harsh...

On that note, Bungie also explains that it has resolved an issue where this pre-order bonus was not appearing in Destiny 2's Special Deliveries Kiosk as it was supposed to, meaning players couldn't actually claim it in-game.

Bungie has also recently announced the voice cast for Marathon. With the likes of Samantha Béart, Roger Clark, Darin De Paul, Jennifer English, Neil Newbon, and Ben Starr, it's oddly stacked for an extraction shooter.

While it's easy to poke fun at this unusual Steam bug (Bungie is no stranger to absurd glitches Bungie is always patching—I'm looking at you, Destiny 2), Marathon's new look is showing lots of promise.