While Marathon is genuine game-of-the-year material, Bungie’s extraction shooter has a high barrier-to-entry due to the sheer presence of PvP within its matches. While other games in the genre have a surprisingly high percentage of PvE players, Marathon is brutal.
As Bungie hopes to foster a slightly more friendly shooter, the studio introduced a number of cordial gameplay options in the game’s 1.0.6 patch notes earlier this week. Alongside the introduction of the game’s CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative, the patch brought Mercy Kits to the game.
Marathon creative director Julia Nardin explains that the introduction of Mercy Kits, which allow you to drop a revive for downed players, are designed “for those who want to extend a helping hand to rivals Runners”. Unfortunately, players are using the tool to wreck a new form of havoc on their foes.
As players continue to kill in the name of the game’s Death Cult, Arachne, they aren’t using Mercy Kits to team up with rival players. Instead, players are simply using the kit to bring players back from the dead only to kill them all over again, grabbing some extra XP in the meantime.
Marathon has seen its fair share of friendly groups working together to pass through maps like Cryo Archive, and it’s always fun to see Rooks playing together in late-game runs. However, just as the main game saw players dropping self-revives and stealing them away as Thief in a long-drawn out torture session, many players are using Mercy Kits to troll other players.
In a viral Twitter clip, player Marathonaire shared a video of themselves bringing players back with a Mercy Kit only to shoot them in the head with a WSRT. “I’m a sick bast*ard,” the player said. “Bungie should ban players like you who are immoral and unethical,” one user replied.
While other extraction shooters may revel in players teaming up with one another, Marathon’s core audience is one of the more bloodthirsty groups in online gaming right now. Every match is like jumping into a room filled with every horror movie villain you’ve ever seen before, and they’re all out to get you.
Yes, Marathon can be intense, but I have also had some absolutely amazing experiences with randoms on my team for the first time in a long time. Shout out to that guy from Wales for helping me on Cryo Archive—every other run that day went horrendously.
