I love the look of Marathon, and I like shooters in general. But extraction shooters? Not so much. I’m not very good at them, for one thing, and the constant pressure to get out with your loot before the timer hits zero is a huge drag. So when Bungie said it was looking at PvE modes for Marathon, you bet my ears perked up.
The experimental Sponsored Survival mode introduced earlier this month sounded potentially interesting but not quite what I was after. But the new, full-on PvE Vault Breaker mode revealed today? Yeah, that might be it.
Vault Breaker enables players to venture into Marathon’s raid map, Cryo Archive, solo, in duos or trios, to take on a series of increasingly challenging vaults. The mode will have its own unique progression mechanic that enables players to increase in power across multiple matches, until they reach the final vault “and the mysterious entity within.”
The new mode will require a special “Sponsored Kit”—one of Marathon’s free loadouts—to access, presumably to maintain some semblance of gameplay balance. The bigger twist, though, is that Vault Breaker eschews one of the most fundamental aspects of extraction shooters: Any gear or items you find in the mode will be left behind when you leave. The only thing you’ll take with you Vault Data, a new currency that can be used to upgrade your Vault Breaker Sponsored Kit, or to purchase gear that can be used in other modes.
Bungie said eliminating gear extraction will let players “experience Cryo Archive without flooding the economy with low-risk, high-power Cryo loot,” which seems reasonable to me. But it’s drawn something of a mixed reaction among the PC Gamer crew. Notorious Destiny freak Tim Clark called it a huge mistake, declaring that “not keeping the stuff you find is anathema to me,” while FPS guy Morgan Park saw it in a very different light, saying it “sounds like a fun way to learn the map” without getting your ass shot off by people who already know it inside and out. Lincoln Carpenter, ever the voice of reason, said it “seems fine.”
For myself, I’m actually pretty excited. This is where I finally start paying Marathon: I have even less interest in the loot grind than I do in not having my ass shot off by people who already know the game inside and out, so a mode that effectively does away with both, but still affords me the opportunity to experience the setting and action, is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. But for players who’ve already learned Cryo Archive inside and out over the last three months, a warmup mode with no stakes or other players might be useful, but probably not what they’re ultimately after.
Vault Breaker will be rolled out as part of Marathon’s mid-season, which gets underway on July 21. The mid-season will also see the first iteration of the Cradle Evolution system, giving players who have maxed out their Cradle upgrades an opportunity to reset to zero in exchange for an additional maximum energy point and unique cosmetics, as well as “various other quality-of-life, tuning, and other changes, including the addition of player profile stats.”
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