PC/Steam – Update 1.1.5: black screen at launch, Marathon.exe exits with code 1 before intro/menu

PLATFORM
Steam – Windows 11 PC

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
Marathon worked normally before Update 1.1.5 and was played successfully the previous night.

Immediately after installing Update 1.1.5 on 21 July 2026, the game stopped launching correctly. BattlEye starts, the Marathon launcher starts, and the game opens to its initial black screen. Before the intro sequence or main menu appears, the game closes completely and Steam returns to the green Play button.

There is no in-game error message or error code. Windows Event Viewer does not create a conventional Application Error or Windows Error Reporting event at the time of the failure.

The issue is fully repeatable on every launch.

ROUGH DATE AND TIME
First observed: 21 July 2026 at approximately 23:18 BST.
Repeated tests continued into the early hours of 22 July 2026.

REPRODUCTION STEPS
1. Open Steam.
2. Select Marathon and press Play.
3. BattlEye starts successfully.
4. Marathon opens to the initial black screen.
5. Before the intro or main menu appears, Marathon closes completely.
6. Steam returns to the Play button.
7. No error message or error code is displayed.

EXPECTED RESULT
Marathon should continue from the initial black screen into the intro and main menu, as it did before Update 1.1.5.

ACTUAL RESULT
The Marathon game process terminates silently during early startup, before the intro or menu.

FREQUENCY
100% of launch attempts since installing Update 1.1.5.

NON-SENSITIVE SYSTEM SUMMARY
• Windows 11 64-bit
• Steam
• Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX
• 32 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU with 16 GB dedicated VRAM
• DirectX 12
• NVIDIA graphics driver version 32.0.16.1074
• 4K display; issue occurs with HDR both enabled and disabled

DIAGNOSTIC FINDINGS
• Steam reports the game as fully installed.
• Steam verification completed successfully on Build ID 24222631 with “No Error”.
• Repeated Steam game-process entries show the Marathon game process exiting with code 1.
• The Marathon launcher exits normally with code 0.
• One recorded example:
  – Launch began: 22 July 2026 at 00:22:33 BST
  – Game process exited: 22 July 2026 at 00:23:10 BST
  – Marathon game-process exit code: 1
  – Launcher exit code: 0
• DxDiag reports no problems on the display, sound or input tabs.
• DxDiag Windows Error Reporting contains a RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 entry for Marathon.exe version 47437.0.0.0. This may be incidental, but it is included as a possible correlation point.
• A newly reset Marathon preferences folder was created, but the game exited before regenerating its normal preference files.
• No conventional Windows application-crash event is generated at the time of these failures.

TROUBLESHOOTING COMPLETED
The behavior remained identical after all of the following:

• Multiple Windows restarts.
• Complete uninstall and fresh reinstall of Marathon.
• Successful Steam verification of the installed files.
• BattlEye uninstall, reinstall and repair.
• Running the BattlEye installation steps with administrator permission.
• Launching only through Steam.
• Resetting Marathon’s local preferences to force a clean configuration.
• A controlled test with third-party real-time protection and firewall protection temporarily disabled, then immediately re-enabled.
• Disabling remaining Nahimic/A-Volute audio components.
• Bypassing SteelSeries Sonar and selecting the physical USB headset and microphone directly.
• Disabling HDR.
• Disabling the NVIDIA in-game overlay.
• Disabling the Steam overlay.

The game continues to fail at exactly the same point after every test.

IMPACT
The PC version is currently completely unplayable on this system. The same hardware and software configuration launched and played Marathon normally before Update 1.1.5.

REQUEST
Please investigate this as a possible Update 1.1.5 PC startup regression. The evidence indicates that Steam, BattlEye and the launcher start successfully, but Marathon.exe terminates with exit code 1 during early startup.