Marathon's weekend Server Slam has only just finished, but with the game launching in a mere three days on March 5, Bungie's ready to talk post-launch plans, spilling the beans on Season 1 and how wipes will work.
Marathon Season 1, running from March to June, is called Death is the First Step, which is a pretty ominous name for the start of our pillaging efforts on Tau Ceti. Bungie explains that, as part of the season's narrative, players will "soon discover a way aboard the derelict UESC Marathon ship hanging above" Tau Ceti. "Once the community unlocks the way into orbit, the fourth zone, Cryo Archive, will become available", which is an end-game location filled with puzzles, frozen vaults, and that terrifying alien we've seen in the trailers. It sounds like this could be a community event of some sort, similar to how we unlocked Arc Raiders' first post-launch map, Stella Montis.
Season 1 also brings Ranked mode in the second half of March to allow players to climb the ladder and earn exclusive rewards, events (such as C.A.R.R.I., whatever that is), a new weapon, and more.
Season 2: Nightfall goes from June to August, bringing the new Dire Marsh nighttime variant, the Sentinel Shell, and 'The Cradle' system (which we know has something to do with stats and builds), alongside new guns, mods, and enemies.
However, Bungie has also confirmed that it's dedicated to mandatory server wipes each season, clearing out your vault and resetting your progression: "These resets include everyone’s gear, contract progression, faction progression, and player level."
The only things you'll keep are:
- Earned and paid cosmetics
- Titles
- Codex progression
- Liason contract progression (in other words, you don't need to unlock the factions each season)
"Seasonal resets mean that the game stays dangerous, loot feels meaningful, and there’s always a good opportunity to get back into the game or bring a friend in without feeling behind the curve."
While mandatory wipes are a tentpole of the genre, solidified by Escape from Tarkov, Marathon's traditional approach contrasts against Arc Raiders, which decided to make its wipe system—Expeditions—optional.
Bungie's reasoning is fair, but I can't shake the feeling that a fair few players won't be happy seeing all their hard work Thanos snapped out of existence every few months. In fact, the issue of quest progression being wiped is already a pain point of Arc Raiders' optional resets, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. My two cents? I think regular wipes are a great way to keep the game fresh, especially if the faction trees are tweaked and new gear is thrown into the mix right as the loot economy is reset.
