Marathon is marching toward perfection

Every patch is another step toward perfection for Marathon. The next leap will be when Bungie reigns in the grenade spam.

The worst thing an online video game can be is a homogenised experience where everything feels the same. The second worst thing it can be is an unbalanced mess where one strategy dominates a sandbox and renders all other options moot. For Bungie, the problem is finding the middle ground between these two extremes for its niche title, Marathon. It must find a place where things can feel powerful but not broken; an area where strategies can compete and skill is rewarded. Thankfully, Bungie is divining this location with its use of patches.

Check out our MARATHON INTERACTIVE MAPS.

Every single week, Bungie has released a new patch for Marathon that takes aim at a few key areas. While there are stability improvements and other common fixes, there are also massive changes that have drastically altered how players engage with combat.

The Biotoxic Disinjector was a weapon you could not outplay. Bungie nerfed it. Players were self-reviving constantly, making fights needlessly long. Bungie increase the rarity of Self-Revive Kits. The WSTR shotgun was a requirement in your loadout, easily knocking down players despite them having the best shields in the game. Bungie tightened the leash.

There were a host of other modifications too, all of which changed the texture of the moment-to-moment gameplay. Mercy Revives give players an opportunity to turn an enemy into a friend, depleted regen items now stack higher, underperforming Shells have received warranted buffs, and so much more.

While perfection may never been attainable in its strictest sense, these updates have made Marathonfeel much better to play, especially in the endgame map, Cryo Archive. But the job doesn’t end here. There are still some glaring problems that Bungie has to address if it wants to find that golden area.

Probably the biggest thing Bungie needs to target, and Game Director Joe Zeigler has acknowledged it, is grenade spam. Combat in the endgame map, Cryo Archive, has devolved into opening each engagement with a salvo of grenades, like some sort of explosive snowball fight. We’re talking Master Chief circa Halo: Combat Evolved levels of spam. There’s no purposeful placement of grenades, it’s just throw until you push your enemy back and overwhelm them with the AoE effects. It’s insufferable.

The strategy is so dominant that players are stockpiling grenades instead of picking up any other rewards from rooms. At the moment, it’s better to walk out with a bag full of grenades than a piece of salvage that will net you $4,000. Similarly, the MIDA vendor _gantry is making a killing as players clean out his supply of throwables every single day.

With the grenade spam addressed, Marathon will be one step closer to having a perfectly balanced combat sandbox. Obviously there will always be a meta, but it should consist of many different parts as opposed to a singular piece of gear or item.

Beyond the tweaks to weapons and Shells to balance combat, Bungie also needs to take a wider look at mechanics and systems, specifically the Fragile Key Templates that encourage cowardice. But right now, I’d be pleased to have no more snowball fights in Cryo Archive.

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