Marathon is set to trial a new limited-time mode where Runners can only use Free Kits over the next few weeks. The announcement comes from Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler on Twitter (now X) and follows several rounds of very successful testing for a duo queue.
According to Ziegler's tweet, the first round of Free Kit Frenzy will begin on April 15th at 10 AM PT and last for two weeks until April 29th at 10 AM PT. As the name suggests, in this mode, all Runners will enter with a free sponsored kit from one of Marathon's six core factions, forcing them to scavenge the map for every advantage and upgrade they can get their grubby little hands on. This will turn the core extraction experience into a more tense battle-royal-like setting, where every player is on even footing from the jump.
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The first iteration of this experimental game mode will be the Dire Marsh - Sponsored Queue, with the dim swamps of Dire Marsh being the only map available during this first trial run. Based on previous experimental runs, it is likely that Bungie may trial the Sponsored Queue on the other core Marathon maps, Outpost and Perimeter, at a later date, but Dire Marsh is certainly the most fitting for now.
Players can queue up in a configuration of trios with crew fill, pre-made trios, or pre-made duos with crew fill turned off. To queue into sponsor-only mode, every member of your pre-made team must have a white-tier sponsored kit equipped, which can be purchased for free from the Armory.
This test is supposed to help Bungie learn more about their early gear economy, with Ziegler noting a particular focus on "how the game plays out with low fixed set gear conditions."
The Sponsored Queue is the second major Experimental Queue that Bungie has added to Marathon. The Experimental Queue is a limited-time mode that allows Bungie to "preview features in development" with Runners to gather feedback on upcoming changes. The first set of Experimental Queues was all Duo Queues on each of the game's three main maps to test the viability of Duos, with the success of this mode resulting in Bungie committing to adding a dedicated Duo Queue in Season 2.
The launch of the Sponsored Queue is only one of several significant updates coming to Bungie's extraction shooter over the next few days, with the game's first big mid-season patch launching earlier today. This update not only tweaked the kits of several Runner Shells — notably buffing Recon and Vandal while nerfing Thief — and added several new vanity items to the Battle Pass and Codex, but it also introduced the C.A.R.R.I initiative event to promote more cooperation between randoms and teams.
You can find a full list of patch notes for Marathon Version 1.0.6 on Bungie.net.