The first season of Bungie’s Marathon is winding down but players should be excited about what’s coming to the game next as part of Season 2.
Season 2 of Marathon begins on June 2
It’s safe to say that despite pre-launch concerns, Marathon had quite a strong release and has been doing pretty well throughout its first season. It’s managed to carve out some elbow room next to last year’s smash-hit Arc Raiders thanks to Bungie’s smooth and crisp first-person shooting that has served as a more than solid foundation. Plus, players have been treated to a healthy amount of new modes and zones over the course of the past few months.
The biggest Season 1 addition was the perilous endgame zone Cryo Archive, which demands players have a minimum loadout value of 5,000 credits to be able to queue for it. While Marathon is primarily designed to be played in groups of three, players got an experimental taste of duos early on in the season before it was taken out of the rotation.
duos will return in season 2
Marathon’s game director @Ziegler_Dev reflects on the journey so far and the weird and wild path ahead. Here’s the gist of it:
With the first season of Marathon we’ve created a strong core community.
— Marathon (@MarathonTheGame) May 14, 2026
In a very long X post, Marathon director Joe Ziegler reflected on the extraction shooter’s launch, it’s first season, and some of the things the team has learned based on feedback from the playerbase. He also shared some of what the team is working on for Season 2, including the return of duos and some helpful tweaks like larger vaults for players to store their precious goods and quicker faction progression. Ziegler also mentioned that the team is toying with the idea of “pure PVP, PVE, and PVP-lite experiences.”
The return of duos in Marathon is quite a big deal, as a sizable portion of the community seemed to have enjoyed the mode. It started out in the first zone, Perimeter, and was later made available in one of the more treacherous zones, Outpost, before it was removed from the game entirely. Ziegler says that duos will have a “rotating queue”, meaning its availability will change, though it’s still not known for sure whether the mode will remain in the game for the entire second season, unlike the first.
Ever since Marathon‘s launch, many players have been asking about a dedicated PVP mode, as players can go long stretches of time without encountering other squads. Others are opposed, saying that PVP would split the player pool, and that Bungie should continue to focus on the core extraction experience. It’s good to know that Bungie is aware of the discourse surrounding PVP and seems to be taking its time making sure whatever it comes out with feels right for players. Seeing how prominently Ziegler brought it up in the post, whatever PVP experience the team is working on is likely to show up in some capacity during Season 2.
As for future seasons, Ziegler noted the team will be looking to flesh out the world more, iron out some of the early game hiccups new players frequently encounter, and make some intriguing tweaks to how its established extraction loop can play out. For now, Season 2 of Marathon, called Nightfall, is going live on June 2, and when it does, players will be able to queue up for Night Marsh, which is a nighttime variant of the existing Dire Marsh zone. A new runner shell named Sentinel will also be going live as part of the second season.
Marathon is available for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
The post Duos, Larger Vaults, and More Coming in Marathon Season 2 appeared first on VICE.
