Marathon's Game Director admits it's "overwhelming to learn" and too sweaty

For a very specific segment of the extraction shooter crowd, Marathon has landed incredibly strongly, with Bungie’s trademark FPS combat backed up by a very firm sense of identity and world building. In a new blog post, however, Game Director Joe Ziegler concedes that its appeal might be too niche for the long-term, acknowledging that Marathon is “overwhelming to learn,” and that it’s too much of a hardcore sweat-fiesta. “It’s hard to find that chill moment,” he writes, so for Season 2 the team is leaning into both “more mind-bending sci-fi” and more laid-back ways to play.

“Nearly three months have passed since we’ve flung you across the stars and crash landed you onto the dangerous and mysterious lost colony on Tau Ceti IV,” Ziegler notes. He says Bungie was excited to watch its core community grow around the “tense survival experience” that Marathon presents, along with the wealth of love players have shown for the world through the likes of fanart, lore videos, and so on. “We are highly thankful for the community,” he continues, “You are the reason we do this, and our gratitude for all of you cannot be expressed enough.”

Ziegler says Bungie has come to four key conclusions over the course of Marathon Season 1. To start with, it’s “an overwhelming experience” for newcomers, with limited tutorials before you’re thrown into the deep end among hostile players. It’s “easy to hit a wall if you’re not spending lots of time, don’t have a consistent crew, or are not super skilled.” In the more extreme cases, he describes the sensation of a “death spiral” where each run goes wrong, you’re struggling to earn faction progress or materials, and it feels impossible to catch up to the pack.

The endgame balance puzzle is still in flux, and the current meta can make it feel like every fight “is chaotic, fast, and stressful in a bad way,” with rare opportunities to make tactical decisions against aggressive strategies. Last on the list, Ziegler simply says, “Sometimes you don’t want to sweat.” For as rewarding as those intense matches can be, “sometimes you need to power down and just want to frag out or relax and play a different way.” Destiny 2 is great at this; Marathon simply doesn’t have an answer… yet.

Marathon Season 2 will therefore include two new PvE-focused modes “where you can find more novel ways to play when you’re stressed out from a nail-biting run and just need to cool off or have fun.” The first to arrive will be primarily PvE but “with a light touch of PvP,” while the second will be purely co-operative, focusing on “crews being tasked with completing objectives together and making some progress across matches.”

The other aspect Ziegler wants to offer in Season 2 is “a better seat-gripping experience with more mind-bending sci-fi.” To start with, this will include “a new dimension of challenge with Night Marsh, a new defensive Runner shell ‘Sentinel,’ new weapons and equipment, a revamp to how you acquire Runner shell stats to give you more options with the Cradle, and increased progression rates for faction and Runner levels.”

Also planned for Season 2 are a Duos rotating zone queue, a new matchmaking system “that helps players find better-quality matches with more flex for higher-end players,” and an expansion to your Vault size. Bungie has been cooking up UI and quality-of-life improvements designed “to help make setting goals and getting into a match smoother.” Looking ahead to future seasons, an improved onboarding experience and better contract system are high on the priority list.

As for what else Bungie has in store, Ziegler says it’s working “to escalate the game and bring new areas of Tau Ceti to life,” with particular emphasis on ensuring that both veterans and newcomers are well-served by “new and interesting challenges.” He notes that the following plans are very much “in development” and will “likely take better shape and change as we learn more over Season 2.”

On the list is a new zone “that leans into more alien elements and mind-warping debuffs.” Of course you can expect new enemy types, big and small, but not necessarily just ones that originate on Tau Ceti. More weapons are on the cards; the focus here is on filling out “the battery side of the arsenal.” Finally, Bungie is investigating “new ways to exfil that create interesting tradeoffs between how much loot you carry versus how safe they are.”

Marathon Season 2 begins on Tuesday June 2. If you’re eager to learn more about the specifics of what it actually looks like, Ziegler promises a deeper dive into the likes of the Night Marsh zone, the Sentinel shell, and the fresh Cradle progression system in the week commencing May 25. “Time to get back to work and turn words into releases,” he concludes.