In an effort to provide Marathon with some additional staying power, Bungie said in May that it would be experimenting with PvE and PvE-adjacent offerings as Marathon seasons continue, giving players a chance to see what playing the game is like when they aren’t drenched in sweat.
Today, the studio offered some preliminary details about Sponsored Survival, Marathon’s first “PvP-lite” experimental mode that will be available during the inaugural week of its second season. Unlike Marathon’s other playlists, the mode will allow a single squad to scavenge a map without the looming threat of PvP—to begin with, at least.
In Sponsored Survival, only one squad—or one player, if you’re queueing solo—will deploy into season 2’s new Night Marsh map. As you might guess from the name, you’ll be restricted to sponsored kit loadouts, and you and your crew will be free to roam the map and pick fights with UESC bots and “some new enemies that lurk in the shadows.” Initially, you’ll be able to trust that you’ll be completely unassailed by other players.
However, Bungie says that “after a certain period of time,” that short-lived taste of PvE Marathon will start to get a lot more unpredictable. Rooks—Marathon’s late-joining, zero-stake players—will begin backfilling into the map, injecting an escalating threat of potential player conflict.
Depending on the temperament of the Rook players who filter into your sessions, it’s possible that you and your squad could find yourself collecting a small legion of robot auxiliaries. Or you might instead be hunted through the dark by homicidal killbot players with nothing to lose. Either way, at the end of the match, you’ll all be funneled to the same spot: Sponsored Survival only has one exfil, and it only opens at the very end of the 18-minute timer.
“Once there, the decision is yours: Will you negotiate a temporary truce and exfil as one, or turn your weapons on each other in the dead of night?” Bungie said. “This asymmetrical mode changes the dynamics of a run, taking the heat off of the lone crew for the first few minutes of the match, while also keeping some of the fun, social unpredictability that Rooks bring to runs.”
It’s a tempting alternative to Marathon’s typical form of tension, but I’m interested to see whether most Sponsored Survival matches will just end with Rooks pouncing on players who had the whole match to scrounge together the map’s best loot. Who knows: Maybe this is the time runners and Rooks can find a lasting mutual understanding.
If not, Marathon players will have another shot at enjoying a less-overtly hostile Tau Ceti IV in season 2, as Bungie says it “will be testing a PVE mode in the latter half of Season 2.”
Sponsored Survival will coincide with Marathon’s free week, running from June 2 to June 9.
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