As we approach the end of Marathon’s Season 1, Bungie has announced what changes they’re bringing to help amp up the chaos until Season 2, giving us a chance to experience everything the game has to offer. So what’s in store?

Increased Map Events and Guaranteed Keys

Personally, I haven’t seen a ton of Locked Room Keys drop while playing, and that may be because maps simply don’t always have the map events needed for me to actually have a chance at a key. That all changes with 1.0.9, as random map events like Intercept, Lockdown, Warden spawns, Convoy, and Anomaly will now be guaranteed on each run, and all Wardens will drop a guaranteed key.

On top of both of these changes, UESC activity across maps will also increase! Wardens can now spawn at new POIs in Perimeter, Dire Marsh and Outpost. Perimeter will have dramatically more UESC dropship flyovers and crash sites, and both Perimeter and Dire Marsh will have a new UESC threat deployed.

Every run is going to feel more alive, more chaotic, and give you more options for how you want to tackle it. Wardens will be more highly contested, bringing those awesome PvEvP boss fights more frequently. Loot will be more plentiful. The only downside I can really see is it makes the game even more difficult for new players, but personally I can’t wait to hop in!

More Cryo Archive!

It took my and my squad a while, but we have been dipping our toes into Cryo Archive and have been loving it. That being said, trying to learn such a difficult and intricate map while constantly risking $5k worth of inventory is a bit rough, and only having the map open on certain days has prevented us from playing it some weeks. All that changes with 1.0.9! Runners will now receive a free Cryo Archive Sponsored Kit daily, and Cryo will be open every single day til the end of Season 1.

This is a phenomenal change. Cryo Archive is the marquee experience in Marathon, but the barrier to entry has always been too high in my opinion. You want a lot of players playing that map, and I feel like this was a niche map in an already niche game.

They are also adding Ranked Cryo Archive as the final Ranked map of the season, which actually lowers the entry price to enter the map (we think?) to $3k for the Low Stakes tier, and $10k for the High Stakes tier.

Update 1.0.9 Balance Changes

Faction Progression:

  • All experience gains for Faction Progression will be increased for the rest of the season, so check out Faction Upgrades that you may have passed over to see if they’re something you want to play next season

Rook:

  • Signal Mask remains active for longer when sprinting
  • The range that AI is able to detect your footsteps when Signal Mask is active has been reduced

Key Templates:

  • For the rest of Season 1, Templates will be changed to Compromised instead of Fragile which prevents keys from being destroyed in the match and allows you to loot keys from other players
  • This means that you will need to find a Matter Fixative from UESC Commanders and other enemies to extract the key
  • This should help improve the Key Template loop, where instead of hiding and waiting for an extract, Runners will actually have to fight UESC to earn their key

Deluxe Keys:

  • Deluxe Keys now have a chance to drop from every wall safe you loot during a run

For the rest of the updates and for information regarding the wipe and Season 2, take a look at Bungie’s full article.

See you on Tau Ceti!