- Marathon game director Joe Ziegler has shared new plans for Marathon as the game's Steam player count dwindles
- Bungie plans to reintroduce duos in Season 2 and new PvE and PvP-lite experiences
- The developer also wants to improve the onboarding process for new players
Bungie has revealed new content plans for Marathon Season 2 and beyond as the game's Steam player count continues to decline.
As the first season of the first-person shooter (FPS) comes to a close, game director Joe Ziegler has shared what the team has learned after two months of launch in a new blog post and outlined what it aims to change going forward, including the introduction of new PvE experiences.
"With the first season of Marathon we’ve created a strong core community," Ziegler said. "We're embarking on a multi-season journey built around growing from the seed of this strong community. We’re looking to solve some pain points for players."
Those pain points include making the game "less grindy, more rewarding," improving UI/UX, matchmaking, solo and duo play, the end game meta, and "smoothing out onboarding."
Bungie also wants to introduce new "fun and mind-bending content," such as updated zones, Runner shells, combatants, loot, and build systems that make progressing more interesting.
The director confirmed that the team is also exploring more "pure PVP, PVE, and PVP-lite experiences starting in Season 2 with two modes, one at the beginning and one towards the middle to latter half of the season.
"The experimental mode at the beginning of the season will focus more on PVE, but with a light touch of PVP," Ziegler said. "The second experimental mode will be a PVE-only mode that’s focused on crews being tasked with completing objectives together and making some progress across matches.
"We’ll continue to run experimental queues beyond these two offerings for Season 2 and beyond, testing the waters around other mechanics (such as perhaps a more purely PVP-focused mode) with the potential for these to become part of the core game loop or permanent new ways to play."
Beyond Season 2, which launches on June 2, Bungie will improve the onboarding process for new players and, beyond Season 3, will change the contract system to improve how players interact with Priority and other contracts.
Bungie's new plan comes as Marathon's Steam player count continues to decline. At launch, the game had an all-time peak of 88,337 players and now sits at less than 15% of that according to SteamDB. As of writing, the there are just over 6,000 players in-game.
From the lengthy blog post, it's clear that Bungie is looking to bring new players into the fold as it even admits that the game is "overwhelming to learn". It's also aiming to improve on experiences for the few dedicated players sticking around, like bringing back Duos for Season 2 with a rotating Duos queue and the new PvE and PvP-lite modes.
The studio even acknowledges the inconsistency of the game, understanding that new players can "hit a wall" and admitting it's still "figuring out the balance mix of the endgame."
With the detailed roadmap officially laid out, let's hope that Bungie can turn things around.
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