In Marathon, every player becomes a biosynthetic shell designed to help survive Tau Ceti IV. These are known as Runner Shells and are a core part of how you play the game and approach combat encounters.
Runner Shells are archetypes or classes in Marathon that have dedicated abilities and determine your playstyle. There’s a Shell for stealth, intel gathering, healing, and more. You can then expand on their base kits using cores and implants. Cores are designed for a specific archetype and can alternate their abilities, while implants are universal perks, creating a buildcrafting sandbox like no other extraction shooter.
Every archetype has passive, tactical, and Prime (Ultimate) abilities to use inside and outside of combat. Below, you can find a complete breakdown of all seven Runner Shells that will be available in Marathon on launch.
Table of contents
Every Runner Shell in Marathon
Destroyer
Destroyer is a frontline combat specialist. Its purpose is to get into the fight as fast as possible and stay in it. This archetype has thrusters on its legs to sprint faster or evade enemy shots. As a combat specialist, Destroyer has a riot barricade to take the front lines and follow up with its Prime ability that launches heat-seeking missiles, immobilizing targets.
Here are Destroyer Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Search and Destroy (Prime): Activate shoulder-mounted missile pods. Dealing sustained damage launches homing missiles, dealing damage, and immobilizing targets.
- Riot Barricade (Tactical): Toggle an energy barricade that blocks incoming damage, draining tactical ability energy. Taking damage drains additional energy.
- Thruster (Trait): Activate while airborne to fire boosters that thrust you in the direction you are moving.
- Tactical Sprint (Trait): Double-press sprint to move faster at the cost of generating additional heat.
Assassin
A classic stealth archetype, Assassin’s kit is centered around smokes and invisibility. It has a dive that can negate fall damage while creating a cloud of smoke and a Prime ability that creates multiple plumes of smoke. The tactical ability covers the Shell in a shroud of invisibility, and it also triggers when stepping inside the Prime ability’s smokes.
While invisible, the Assassin can sprint and mantle, but the faster it is, the more visible it becomes. Any action, like healing and shooting, also interrupts the invisibility for a brief moment before coming back online.
Here are Assassin Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Smoke Screen (Prime): Throw a smoke disc that emits a line of smoke fields, disrupting the optics of those who step inside.
- Active Camo (Tactical): Pull a shroud of invisibility over yourself. Performing offensive actions, taking damage, and using abilities and consumables disrupts invisibility.
- Shadow Dive (Trait): Activate while airborne to slam into the ground, deploying a smoke field.
- Shroud (Trait): Automatically go invisible when entering any smoke field. Invisibility persists a short time after leaving the smoke field.
Recon
Recon is the complete opposite of Assassin and is designed to track targets down. It comes with a spider drone that tracks down enemies and explodes, overheating them, preventing them from moving, sprinting, and inflicting tick damage.
This archetype’s Prime ability sends out a pulse that detects both AI and player targets, marking them for the Recon Shell. Recon is always aware of its surroundings, with passives showing recent enemy footprints and getting signals in case it gets pinged by the enemy Runner.
Here are Recon Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Echo Pulse (Prime): Release a series of sonar pulses, revealing nearby enemies.
- Tracker Drone (Tactical): Deploy a microbot that tracks nearby hostiles and explodes, overheating any targets.
- Interrogation (Trait): When pinged by a hostile Runner, receive a warning in your HUD. Performing a finisher on a runner pings their crew.
- Stalker Protocol (Trait): Breaking the target’s shields makes them leave behind a short holographic trail.
Vandal
Fast and breaking the rules, Vandal is all about movement. It has micro-jets to perform a double jump, a power slide that goes farther than a regular slide, and the Prime ability that overloads its systems to chain all movements together. To set itself up for an attack, the Vandal can also use an arm cannon and knock Runners out of cover or from buildings.
Here are Vandal Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Amplify (Prime): Reduce the heat generated from movement abilities while increasing movement speed and weapon dexterity.
- Disrupt Cannon (Tactical): Transform your arm into a cannon and fire a projectile that deals damage and pushes enemies. Hold the ability button to overcharge your arm cannon, greatly increasing the size and damage of the blast.
- Microjets (Trait): Activate while airborne to perform a souble jump, while generating additional heat.
- Power Slide (Trait): Grants a supercharged slide that generates additional heat.
Thief
Thief is a “loot-goblin” archetype, with ability recharge rates and stats increasing the more loot is in the backpack. It can see containers and enemies within the line of sight through walls. Thief’s Prime ability is a pickpocket drone with a mechanical hook that can knock loot out of enemies’ hands and grab it. To get away with stealing loot, the Shell has a grappling hook that opens and pulls you mid-flight.
Here are Thief Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Pickpocket Drone (Prime): Deploy a remotely controlled drone with a limited charge. While piloting, fire a tether to eject the highest-value item from the target’s inventory, collect and store loot, and open doors. You can leave the drone manually and re-enter it while it’s still active
- Grapple Device (Tactical): Launch a grapple device in a direction and propel yourself toward it.
- X-Ray Visor (Trait): Activate your visor to see containers through walls in the color of the most valuable item inside them. Also highlights enemies within the line of sight. While active, aiming at a hostile target for a short time hacks their optics.
- The Finer Things (Trait): Gain increased weapon handling and Grapple Device charge rate based on the number of items in your backpack.
Triage
A combat medic, Triage is an essential unit on a team with the ability to get teammates up from a distance. Triage deploys healing drones to provide shields and health, as well as shares the effects of any consumables Triage uses on itself.
In combat, this archetype can overcharge its capacitor gauntlets to improve its weapons, also allowing battery weapons to EMP targets when breaking their shields.
Here are Triage Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Reboot+ (Prime): Ready the defibrillator systems. Hold to lock on and use them to revive an ally from a distance or EMP an enemy. Press again to cancel.
- Med-Drone (Tactical): Deploy a floating medical drone that attaches to crew members and restores health or recharges shields. Prevents them from bleeding out when downed.
- Shareware.exe (Trait): Benefits from medical consumables are shared between crew members with Med-Drones attached.
- Battery Overcharge (Trait): Boost the performance of your weapons at the cost of generating additional heat. While active, breaking a target’s shield with a volt weapon EMPs them.
Rook
Rook is a scavenger Shell in Marathon. Similar to a free loadout in ARC Raiders, it comes with a random starting loadout and is only available to join a match in progress as a solo Runner. Rook has its own tactical ability that allows it to blend with the UESC forces, preventing them from rendering you hostile.
Here are Rook Runner Shell’s abilities:
- Recuperation (Prime): Slowly restore health. Interrupted when taking damage.
- Signal Mask (Tactical): Activate a mask that temporarily deceives UESC forces, making them unaware of your presence. Disrupted when you sprint or take damage.
