Bungie revealed Season 2 of Marathon earlier this week, and it’s already given players the headlines for its upcoming reset. Marathon is getting a new map, a new defence-focussed shell, a new runner upgrade system, and a free week for players who didn’t jump aboard for Season 1 to try the game out for themselves.
Now, though Bungie has provided a much more detailed overview of how the new season will affect combat on Tau Ceti IV, diving into the nitty gritty of how gunfights have been reshaped and rebalanced for the coming wipe.
The changes are many and nuanced. But the upshot is that Bungie wants “your choices to feel more intentional” when you dive into a round. The rework gives players more options in both preparing for and engaging in combat, while also aiming to curb some loadouts that were too effective in Season 1.
In particular, there are two weapon-types that Bungie is aiming to tackle. Shotguns and specifically thermal snipers. The former, particularly the WSTR were the bane of balancing in Season 1, with Marathon’s double-barrelled blaster having already received two separate nerfs. Season 2 doesn’t make any further changes to shotguns. But it does introduce a new counter to players who enjoy close-range combat—the KKV-9SD.
This pistol-frame SMG was revealed earlier this week, with Bungie describing it as “excellent at mowing down anything immediately right in front of you.” But Bungie specifically calls out its effectiveness against shotgunners in its combat deep-dive, stating that the KKV’s rapid fire rate (the fastest in the game, apparently) “excels at close range combat, specifically mowing down eager shotgun rushers.”
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You can still use shotguns, of course, though that’s more than can be said for thermal scopes on sniper rifles. Bungie believes thermal snipers were “overperforming” in Season 1, deciding to remove the optics’ compatibility with sniper rifles in Season 2. This isn’t necessarily a “permanent benching” and Bungie’s going to investigate an alternate solution for this particular combination. But for the immediate future, you’ll have to rely on standard scopes to take other players down from afar.
Alongside these counters and nerfs, a few guns are getting a buff for Season 2. The trusty Overrun AR will become even trustier come June 2, with a significant reduction in horizontal recoil and a smaller reduction in vertical kickback. Meanwhile, the CE Tactical Sidearm (aka the Halo pistol) is getting a substantial stat boost, as Bungie felt its performance wasn’t hitting the mark. Hence, it’s getting better aim assist, increased projectile magnetism, reduced ADS accuracy error multiplier, and a bunch of other adjustments.
Other combat changes include the introduction of “darksight scopes” for use on the new Nighttime version of Dire Marsh, as well as folding stock attachments for both the KKV and the other new weapon, the D54 battle pistol. These increase hip-fire accuracy when folded and improve ADS accuracy when unfolded. Bungie is excited by how these weapons “provide options for different playstyles on a single weapon” though I am slightly concerned these weapons risk COD-ifying Marathon’s gunplay.
Finally, Season 2 will let you bring several new throwables into the battlefield. The frost mine functions similar to the claymore, but deals frost debuff as well as moderate damage when it explodes. The vector grenade works a bit like Recon’s Echo Pulse ability, “highlighting spaces in a large area and any enemies inside its radius”. Finally, players will be able to deploy red, green and blue signal flares, which Bungie says are intended for “non-verbal” communication.
In short, a lot is changing in Season 2. And Bungie has big plans for the longer-term future of Marathon. The studio is looking to experiment with both a PvE mode and more dedicated PvP mode, in an attempt to add more variety to its thus-far dedicated extraction shooter.
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