Bungie released a new update for its extraction shooter Marathon, fixing a number of issues, making the Outpost map more valuable, and putting a stop to some player discovered movement tech. At this point, updates and changes have become the norm for Marathon fans, as Bungie continues to keep the experience feeling fun and fresh. In fact, as a live service title, Bungie appears to be set to continue supporting Marathon for as long as it can.
Since launch, Bungie has been extremely reactive to the community, swiftly providing updates and even testing new features for Marathon. It’s a major change of pace from what players have been accustomed to with Bungie, especially in the past with its previous Destiny games, which could sometimes take a while to address player concerns. This includes adding an experimental Duos mode, which continues to be tested, as well as adjusting the content schedule for Marathon‘s endgame activities to ensure Ranked and Cryo Archive availability no longer overlap. The latest update continues to refine the experience for players, making certain zones more appealing while also keeping things fair while playing.
Bungie Commits to Marathon’s Support ‘For the Long Haul’
Bungie reassures fans that it will continue to support Marathon for years to come as the developers roll out new updates to the shooter.
Leading things off with Bungie’s patch notes for Marathon is an update about new movement tech that players have discovered. Essentially, Bungie opted to address what it calls unbounded movement, where players were able to slide cancel animations by pulling out equipment or using the grapple of Marathon‘s Thief shell to keep momentum. The reasoning behind this change is that Bungie wants player aggression and rapid repositioning to have a cost, either through heat buildup, added risk, or ability cooldown, so the fact that this issue had none of these restrictions made it unhealthy to keep for the long-term future of Marathon.
For many, one of the bigger pieces of this update also impacts the Pinwheel area on Marathon‘s Outpost map. First, the Tox Warden encounter, typically near the Dormitories section, has been adjusted to reduce the number of hiding spots available within the combat area, while the tox plants are more reactive to nearby players. In addition, it appears that the final exfil location was unintentionally spawning in the same location every time, which Bungie has fixed, which should no doubt make the final moments more tense for remaining players.
The Outpost Pinwheel, an area that is supposed to house some premium loot after players work to get inside, has also been improved. Not only has BUngie improved the loot rewards in this area, but it has also updated the encounters to match the new rewards. The Hub room has new security credentials, bulletproof glass, and the Destroyed Wing entrance has also been re-opened. Interestingly enough, players have noticed a few additional changes to the Pinwheel area of the Outpost map. While the loot has been updated, players will likely notice that some storage locations have moved from their original locations, adding an element of freshness to Outpost runs.
Considering that Marathon is part of a genre that can be fairly intimidating to most players, because death means all acquired and equipped loot and items are lost, glitches or other unexpected issues can also have an adverse effect. Marathon‘s Cryo Archive endgame map has thankfully seen a fix for an issue where a section in Vault 6 could lead to runners falling to their death. A sudden and unfortunate end for simply exploring one of Marathon’s more interesting maps. Similarly, the Anomalous waypoint activity on Dire Marsh has also been fixed as it could sometimes appear below the map, even though the event itself was supposed to be inactive.
Marathon Update 1.0.5.2 Patch Notes
Combat
Runner Shells
- Fixed an issue allowing slide cancel animations to keep momentum when either pulling out equipment or Thief’s Grapple Device ability.
Developer Note: One of our core philosophies for Marathon is that rapid repositioning and aggression must always have a meaningful cost. That cost can be an ability charge, heat buildup, or increased risk but it must exist and be understandable to an observer. Unbounded movement, while expressive and clip-worthy, is ultimately unhealthy for the pace of play we want to maintain for Marathon. To set expectations early, we will be looking at any future movement exploits through the same lens.
Contracts
- Fixed an issue where players could end up locked in a room during the Introducing: NuCaloric
- Fixed an issue where disabled contracts could not be rerolled for free.
- Fixed an issue making the objective points visible for all Runners on the map when one Runner is on RUN/HIDE [Part 1/6].
Zones
Dire Marsh
- Fixed an issue where the Anomalous waypoint activity was appearing below the map even when the event was inactive.
Outpost
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Adjusted the combat area for the Tox Warden:
- Tuned the layout to reduce the number of hiding spots.
- Tox plants now react correctly to player presence.
- Fixed an issue where the final exfil would spawn in the same spot every time.
Pinwheel
- Destroyed Wing entrance has been re-opened.
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Improved overall loot rewards.
- This includes the quality of loose loot and small containers.
- Updated encounters to match reward quality.
- Changed the security credentials needed to access the locked room in the Hub.
- Added bulletproof glass to the Hub room.
Cryo Archive
- Fixed geometry in Vault 6 that allowed Runners to fall to their death.
Armory
- Fixed a crash that could occur when opening the Armory.
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Fixed a bug that was causing low framerate on Armory tabs with many items.
- Developer Note: Traxus operates beyond scale.
Codex
- Fixed an issue in the Ranked Challenges section causing Diamond to show before Platinum.
- Fixed an issue with the Requiem for a Cyborg challenge so that it progresses for all players in a crew after a successful Compiler kill.
UI & UX
Keybinds
- The ESC key will now exit the keybinding menu instead of exiting settings.
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Added an option to clear keybinds in the settings menu.
- NOTE: Non-English languages will show this setting as blank. This will be fixed in a future patch.
Text Chat
- Fixed an issue causing loss of control for a few seconds after using an IME keyboard in text chat while in a run.
Localization
- Fixed an issue causing certain Codex entries to appear blank when viewing in Chinese.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Animated Blood, Language, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
