Bungie’s next major Marathon update was supposed to release on September 22, and now it won’t, at least not in the form players were told to expect. Everything planned for that update, including the new Runner shell, the permanent PvE mode, and the refreshed Perimeter zone, is being merged with a larger update called Symbiosis on December 8. In its place, a smaller update on October 6 will reset progression and the in-game economy for everyone.
Bungie isn’t bothering to sugarcoat the reason for the delay. The studio says Season 2: Nightfall launched with progression and reward issues that accelerated some players into the endgame while leaving others behind, which made Extraction harder to engage with and kept the seasonal reset from working as intended.
The October update, which Bungie is calling the Nightfall Refresh, gives everyone a fresh starting point along with a new Rewards Pass, quality of life improvements, and live balance tuning. Vault Breaker also returns for a limited time, with Bungie saying it wants data on how PvE fits into progression a few weeks after a reset.
What’s probably more exciting for players is Symbiosis. December 8 brings Marathon’s first permanent PvE experience, which Bungie describes as a new way to explore and progress outside of the PvPvE extraction loop, plus a refreshed Perimeter, a social space with a firing range, a new Runner shell, an experimental Team Deathmatch mode, and the first of several onboarding improvements for new players.
Bungie is also ditching the strict seasonal schedule entirely, saying it would rather give the team room to build and test features than ship against fixed deadlines. A March update is already on the calendar after Symbiosis, and a blog later this month is supposed to lay out how Bungie plans to turn Marathon into what it calls a more alien and dynamic survival experience.
Marathon’s Steam numbers have moved in one direction since launch, from an all-time peak of 88,337 down to a 24-hour peak of just over 5,000 in July, and whatever bump June’s free Open Play Week produced didn’t stick with players. I said back in April that it was clear Bungie is listening, even if it wasn’t clear whether that would be enough to reverse the trend. The full development update is on Bungie’s site.
