This guide covers the four things you need to understand before your first run: the maps, the Runner Shells, the weapons, and how progression actually works — including what you keep and what you lose.
Marathon launches with three maps: Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost. A fourth zone — Cryo Archive — arrives during Season 1. Each map plays differently, has different extraction dynamics, and rewards different Runner Shells. Knowing all three is the difference between a profitable season and a frustrating one.
The game is built around one core loop: drop in, loot, extract. Easy to describe, hard to do when three other squads have the same idea. But once these fundamentals click, Marathon becomes a genuinely thrilling experience.
This guide covers every type of contract in Marathon, breaks down all six factions and what they actually want from you, and gives you practical tips for completing objectives efficiently without throwing your run away.
Marathon launches with four distinct zones, each built around a different kind of threat and pacing. Three are surface maps you can access from day one. The fourth — Cryo Archive — is an endgame location tied to Season 1. Before you drop into any of them, here's everything you need to know.
This guide breaks down all seven Runner Shells — their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and best team synergies — so you know exactly what you're getting into before your first run on March 5.
This article breaks down exactly how the Rook system works, why its design decisions are smarter than they first appear, and what it signals about how Bungie is thinking about Marathon as a live game — not just a launch event.
Before you drop into Tau Ceti IV for the first time, this guide covers everything you need to understand: the game's core rules, Runner shells, factions, maps, and the mindset that separates players who extract from players who lose everything.
We went in with low expectations and came out with a more complicated answer than we expected. Here’s the full breakdown.
2XKO
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ARC Raiders
Arknights: Endfield
Blue Protocol
Call of Duty: BO7
Deadlock
Dune: Awakening
Escape From Tarkov
Helldivers 2
Killing Floor 3
MO.CO
Overwatch 2
Sky: Children of the Light
The Finals
Where Winds Meet