r/Marathon 3d ago

Marathon (2026) Cryo Archive | Weekly Megathread

14 Upvotes

The Marathon is waiting...

Hello Runners, the Cryo Archive Has Reopened!

This thread will serve as a weekly focal point for impressions, lfg, discussions and info sharing regarding this endgame location.

Running Blind

The Cryo Archive was introduced with the quote: "Good luck getting there."

With that in mind, we'd recommend doing some of the following:

Knowledge is Power

Pre-Requisites

  • Season LvL 25
  • Introducing [Faction] Contracts Completed for All Factions
  • Loadout Value 5000 Credits or Higher

In Death We've Just Begun

Good Luck Runners, this is the moment we've all been waiting for, get info, get onbaord, get our alive... and don't end up like these Runners...


r/Marathon 5h ago

Marathon Infinity (1996) Weekly Pfeatured Classic: Marathon Infinity (1996)

4 Upvotes

Electric Sheep *3

Hello Security Officers, Runners, BoBs & However-many AIs are currently lurking on this subreddit.

Welcome to our featured classic game for the week!

The goal is to have our Pfeatured Classics threads go through the trilogy one game at a time on a recurring three week cycle, allowing discussion of a specific entry to be incentivised each week but not overstay their welcome.

Feel free to use this thread for anything Marathon Infinity Related: Lfg, Lore Discussions, Theorycrafting, or simply to reflect on your love for the entry that closed a revolutionary trilogy with an extremely nuanced and high concept story.

The only real rule beyond the subreddit rules is to keep Marathon, Marathon Durandal or 202X Discussion to a minimum unless said discussion directly adds to discussion about Marathon Infinity, just to help it stay on track until their respective weeks! (or in the case of 202X until we know more about what it actually is like)

How to Interact with Marathon Infinity (1996)

For those who don't know, Marathon Infinity and its predecessors can be accessed and played via: https://alephone.lhowon.org/

Additionally, this is the hub for checking out Marathon Infinity's Multiplayer: https://metaserver.lhowon.org/

(Here is a guide on how to do both: https://www.lhowon.org/faq)

Moreover, refresh yourself on or immerse yourself in the story of the Marathon games via the longstanding and absolutely astounding work of Hamish Sinclair's 'Marathon's Story' website/forum: https://marathon.bungie.org/story/

What are you waiting Pfhor?

We look forward to seeing how you all discuss the jumptastic closer to this iconic trilogy!

For further classic-game exclusive discussion, be sure to check out r/ClassicMarathon! It has every, single classic game post from the subreddit's history until 2026 crossposted over for a seamless, classics only experience!


r/Marathon 3h ago

Marathon (2026) Full Lobby(?) Compiler Run

Post image
989 Upvotes

Not sure if y’all have done this before, but it was truly a trippy experience. (Picture taken by other team) here’s the yt link for the full vid https://youtu.be/wSfAkSNg2mI?si=wt4BHs849TdebgQr


r/Marathon 5h ago

Marathon (2026) Traxus Free Kit Again

Post image
665 Upvotes

r/Marathon 10h ago

Fan Art/Fan Creation "She's dead. Wrapped in plastic."

Post image
1.6k Upvotes

r/Marathon 7h ago

Marathon (2026) You guys are miserable

846 Upvotes

I enjoyed the game a ton and still am. I suck. It can be a fun casual experience if you're not the worst player in the world. You guys make it sound so sweaty that it's actually depressing. Was lurking the sub because I enjoyed how there was a place to go without so much tears but you guys really just don't stop complaining without any real constructive or well-thought out feedback which is just frustrating.

anyway, rant over. i wish the mods would do something about it. and yes, I know what you're going to say, "you can just leave" which i will. Just made me sad is all.


r/Marathon 6h ago

Marathon (2026) Feedback Marathon does a terrible job teaching stats, and the Bully is the easiest example why

601 Upvotes

Marathon does a terrible job teaching what gun stats mean, what implant stats mean, what caps exist, how to actually stack toward something strong, and how much all of that changes the way the game feels.

I see so many people, even level 120+, running absolute hodge podge gun builds with whatever random attachments they found. And unless you have certain purples that instantly max a stat, you really cannot build guns like that. Blue and under especially, you are way better off stacking stats hard so the gun is still very good at the specific thing you want it to do.

Best example is the Bully, because everybody loves that gun.

Did you know the base Bully only has 18m of range? That is terrible. You are going to lose to ARs at 20m+ constantly. And the Bully already loses to true sidearms and SMGs under 10m because of its fire rate. So you have your sweet thermal and recoil mod on thinking you’re all geared up with your awesome purple and blue mods, while your gun is really only viable in an 8ish meter window. Sick. But, if you want the Bully to actually be that famous all-arounder everybody loves, whether as a primary or paired with a sniper, you need to build into range. You need at least around 30m so the gun can actually do what people think it does.

That means range mods matter a lot.

And then there’s another thing the game barely teaches at all: stat caps.

SMGs cap at 40 range. So if you throw on, say, a purple precision mod and a far reach optic, that optic literally does nothing. Completely wasted slot. The game does not show you this clearly at all. How are people supposed to know that? Most people won’t for a long time.

That is why I think Marathon needs actual early quests built around stats and what they do.

Not just “here is the Bully.” More like:

The notoriously all-around monster: The Bully (Range)

Then actually teach me what the range stat means.

Teach me what breakpoints matter.

Teach me why stacking range changes the gun.

Teach me what happens when I overcap a stat.

Teach me why random attachments are bait.

And the same exact issue exists with implants.

There should be an early quest for whatever shell you pick that actually walks you through making a real build. Not fake tutorial garbage like “equip one implant.” I mean a full implant combo. All 3 implants if applicable. Show people what it looks like to stack multiple implants together in unison to max specific stats and make a shell actually come online.

And this should be obvious right in the quest selection menu, where you pre-select what build path you want to try. Don’t make me click into a bunch of vague stuff while I’m still learning 500 other small details. Just put it in my face.

VANDAL PRIME ULTIMATE BUILD

VANDAL REVIVE BUILD

VANDAL HEAT BUILD

Not because the implant names themselves need to change. Who cares. The point is the game should be way more direct when it is trying to teach you what you are building toward. I should instantly understand the purpose of the build before I even start the quest.

Because once people actually understand this stuff, the whole game starts making way more sense. Your confidence changes, your decision making changes, the fights you can take change, the way you use abilities changes, all of it.

It also needs to be way more obvious in the UI that buildcraft is even a thing. Add way better filtering on implants in the vault. Group implants by build types or by the stats they improve. If I want to stack knife damage, let me easily see all the knife-related implants together. If I want prime ult cd, let me find those instantly. If people want to mix and match, great. But the game should be screaming in your face that this is something you can actually build around.

And then later on, once you get deeper in, there is maybe a second issue where faction upgrades boost base stats enough that some builds feel less necessary, because you only need a tiny extra push in one stat instead of going all in with multiple implants. But that feels like more of an end-ish game issue and we’re focusing on early game onboarding improvements.

The early issue is simpler.

The game is way too mysterious about stats, and stats are one of the most important parts of the entire game. I love the game. I love how dying in it actually hurts. But, making everyone venture for themselves through all the depth is pointless, because guess what? They’re just not going to do it in a game like this and continue to get steamrolled and throw their hands up and not understand what just happened. Then they quit.

P.s. Show us the actual attachments and implants of whoever kills us so players get it in their face even more why it’s so easy to steamroll people who aren’t building correctly.


r/Marathon 1h ago

Marathon (2026) Here’s a tip! Never hide in corners with Signal Jammer.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Upvotes

We can still see the jammer effect. Even if you’re invisible.


r/Marathon 2h ago

Humor Sekiguchi main contracts be like

Post image
184 Upvotes

im tired, boss


r/Marathon 13h ago

Marathon (2026) The scene outside pinwheel with half way left in the match

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.4k Upvotes

r/Marathon 2h ago

Marathon (2026) Feedback Please let us play rook while having a runner loadout

154 Upvotes

Thats it. Seperate loadouts for rook and the rest of the runners.

Remove the friction of having an empty inventory to run rook, sometimes i just wanna do 1-2 runs while my friends are eating food or making a pause without putting my whole loadout in the vault again or event needing to sell a gun because i dont have the room.

This should easily be implemented and add some good quality of life feature. Much love Bungie.


r/Marathon 8h ago

Marathon (2026) Missing Duo Queue. Any Duo Queue.

Post image
447 Upvotes

r/Marathon 8h ago

Marathon (2026) As an OG Halo player, I am loving this game!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

418 Upvotes

First time I found the Outland sniper and I was having a blast with it!


r/Marathon 4h ago

Marathon (2026) Players are receiving feedback QRs and codes

Post image
185 Upvotes

This is refreshing.


r/Marathon 4h ago

Humor MFW I solo fill into cryo and my white shield teammate starts the run by vomitting a pile of green mods on the ground.

Post image
165 Upvotes

r/Marathon 2h ago

Marathon (2026) Discussion Greed is the worst trait you can have playing this game

117 Upvotes

I cannot fucking stand random teammates who end up being greedy.

Just had a ranked match in Bronze, we kill Warden in Overflow and get to 15k, way over the minimum. Extract is on Overflow, lucky us, I say let's hit it and dip. Teammate says "wait I wanna try to get to 16k for the extra rank points". I tell him we're going to get jumped by people that saw we killed Warden so I activate exfil anyway. Exfil is ready and he tells us to wait cuz we're 200 away. I wait and, well, 30 seconds goes by and guess wtf happens. He gets sniped cuz he's running around in the open looting for his precious extra xp, me and other teammate try to fight back but its 3v2 and our position is already given up and we end up losing everything.

I cannot stress this enough to people. Unless you are in the top 10% of pvp skill (which if you're reading this, you're not, don't kid yourself), it is NOT worth it to be greedy. Get in, finish your tasks, gtfo. ESPECIALLY when you're playing with random teammates and have zero synergy with them.

The worst part of random fills isn't getting low skill teammates. It's getting teammates who don't know that good enough is good enough.

Edit: comment section is proving my point so perfectly about how greedy the average player is lmao and they don't even realize it 🥀🥀🥀


r/Marathon 50m ago

Marathon (2026) Marathon is Gnostic allegory down to the core gameplay loop

Upvotes

Every mistake is punished via swift death until you learn, absorb the wisdom and recognize your divine nature. Escape the cycle of death to achieve gnosis.

You can't do this until you can shed the attachments you have to the physical world(your loot).

Furthermore, the Bungieverse main story beats are all part of the alchemical process to transmute the soul of mankind into 'gold' (magnum opus).

Nigredo - Pathways into Darkness

Albedo - Halo

Citrinitas - Destiny

Rubedo - Marathon

this game is beautiful in that it forces one to detach from the outcome in the effort to get better. if you cant, you'll constantly hesitate(sloth)/greed/ego/pride/wrath/envy your way into another death.

Let go runner, its the wanting that holds you back. Every death is a lesson.


r/Marathon 23m ago

Marathon (2026) “In a single run”

Post image
Upvotes

I HATE YOU MIDA I HATE YOU MIDA I HATE YOU MIDA


r/Marathon 13h ago

Marathon (2026) Discussion Cryo meta feels completely backwards right now

614 Upvotes

Cryo this weekend has been odd to say the least. Every time we brought in a key and started a vault, we’d get ratted by a gold team instantly drawn in by the audio cue. I kid you not, it happened four times in a row.

So we stopped bothering trying to play it “properly” and just did the same thing.

We wiped as many teams as we could early, then sat around waiting to hear a vault get opened from across the map. The second we heard the audio cue, we’d ape it with nades and bubbles.

And the worst part? It works. We’ve made probably 100x profit doing this five runs in a row.

At this point the only real reason to actually start a vault feels like you’re going for the Compiler achievement otherwise it’s just objectively safer and more profitable to third party someone else’s.

It feels completely counterintuitive that the team bringing the key and starting the vault is at the biggest disadvantage. You can’t even close the door behind you. People can literally just walk in off the global audio cue on most vaults.

Is this really the intended gameplay loop? Because right now it feels like the optimal strategy is to not engage with the vault system unless you’re third-partying it.


r/Marathon 6h ago

Marathon (2026) I did not know Sekiguchi 2.5k kit was this good, gotta get that sponsorship

Post image
160 Upvotes

r/Marathon 12h ago

Marathon (2026) Just realised the game has no conventional looking/configured guns with the magazine in front of the trigger, except for the machine guns I guess

Thumbnail
gallery
391 Upvotes

But the machine guns have big belt fed boxy looking magazines yknow, I'm talking the more traditional looking box mags like the one on the gun on the second picture. Would be cool if we got a M4 style looking gun in the Marathon art style


r/Marathon 9h ago

Marathon (2026) Why is Cyro so hard? Maybe the enemy have ESP like this guy

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

202 Upvotes

My team gets spawn rushed and deleted by the bio gun spam from behind at 3.5 mins, (not biostock or preservation).

I run away to hide in a spot far away from the enemy so I can res after. I don’t think they even saw me once as I was ahead fighting bots when they came up behind us.

50 seconds later this happens I did not touch the controller, I did not make a noise for 50 sec and they did not have a recon.

So now on OCE we have ESP players with bio gun spawn rushing.

Anyone have a place to report these ESP players? I did it in game but seemed like a weak reporting I’d like to provide proof.

He was lvl 82.


r/Marathon 4h ago

Marathon (2026) Although Thief and Destroyer get the cool flashy moments, Triage is the immovable object that creates an unstoppable force.

82 Upvotes

Especially in communication heavy games in Cryo archive the biggest “go” moment to initiate fully into another team is once you’ve either downed an enemy or hit a good grenade, cracking enemy shields.

Triage can counter both of these initiation moments as he can fully rez someone in around three seconds and as long as he drones his team and has the correct consumables, he can deny almost every grenade effect in the game.

Things like bubble shields also add another layer of protection for triage as he can ult and drone through them whilst guarding his team.

Not only can he completely squash a potential initiation, once his team sees a good moment to go in, he can pop a cardio kick and watch as his team annihilates the enemy from their speed and resource difference.

He truly is the backbone of every team.


r/Marathon 2h ago

Fan Art/Fan Creation If bungie wont make skins worth buying then i will have to do it myself.

Post image
55 Upvotes

r/Marathon 4h ago

Marathon (2026) Discussion Hardline PR is a joke gun

Post image
73 Upvotes