Marathon is getting a mid-season update today, and Bungie is placing an emphasis on teamwork while offering new players incentives to join the game. The biggest change is the CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative, which gives solo players and teams rewards if they finish objectives and extract themselves at the same time.
As laid out by Bungie, C.A.R.R.I. rewards will be paid out as CyberAcme Commendations, which can be used to purchase weapons, Reputation Packs, and other items from the C.A.R.R.I. Armory. However, the C.A.R.R.I. Armory will only be available through the end of Season 1.
To encourage more collaboration among players, Bungie is introducing a new feature called Stay Together that will allow runners who exfill together at the end of a run to keep the team-up going as a new crew. Players can also revive a downed enemy with the new Mercy Kit consumable with an eye towards turning them into an ally. However, Mercy Kits won’t work on members of a player’s crew or on the player themselves.
Collaborative objectives will be available through Codex Challenges, and the proximity chat is getting a new toggle that will make it easier for players to speak with each other in-game.
For newcomers to the game, Bungie is offering a temporary 15% boost for reputation earned for for CyberAcme and NuCaloric in their first five ranks through the end of the season. New players will also be able to play solo on the Perimeter map up to Runner Level 12 as they get accustomed to the game and its world.
Bungie is also introducing a new experimental mode called Dire Marsh Sponsored. Essentially, it evens the playing field by forcing players to start with only the free sponsored gear kits.
On Marathon’s social media accounts, game director Joe Ziegler announced that Dire Marsh Sponsored will run from April 15 to April 29. Players can participate solo or enter as a team of two to three. If players don’t already have a team of their own, they can be linked up through matchmaking. Ziegler also noted that Bungie is looking to make duos “a real feature” when Marathon Season 2 launches.
UPDATE: FREE KIT FRENZY – EXPERIMENTAL QUEUE – DIRE MARSH SPONSORED
Thank you to all of you who participated in the Duos Experiments we’ve had over the past few weeks. We’re currently working on making duos a real feature in Season 2 and are diligently working on delivering…— Ziegler (@Ziegler_Dev) April 13, 2026
As for Dire Marsh Sponsored, Ziegler indicated that the point of the experiment is to allow the dev team to see “how the game plays out with low-fixed set gear conditions and caps, and how the zero to hero play works in low starting set gear conditions and caps.” Since players enter the battles with the same equipment, they’ll be solely reliant on the items they find in the Dire Marsh to upgrade themselves. Ziegler also noted that Bungie can only run one experimental mode at a time, but the data gleaned from them will allow the team to finalize new features before experimenting with something else.
Although Marathon had a relatively strong debut in March with over 88,000 concurrent players on Steam, those numbers have been dramatically falling over the last month. According to SteamDB, the greatest number of concurrent players from the last week was just above 28,000. Finding new ways to attract casual players may be very important for the long-term health of the game itself.
Bungie has previously indicated that it’s heard the desire of players for solo play and better scheduling in Cryo Archive. The devs also recently nerfed Marathon’s standard knife after deciding it was too powerful.
