All Marathon factions and how contracts work

There are six Marathon factions that you can work for as a mercenary-for-hire, being paid in useful loot for completing contracts that further their interests. It's one of the main ways you'll see Marathon's narrative unfold but is also a vital system when it comes to unlocking upgrades for your Runner and their gear. However, it's not the simplest system around, so here's a breakdown of everything we know about the factions of Marathon and how their contracts work.

How factions and contracts work in Marathon

Marathon will feature six Factions that players can align themselves with at launch (note that the Marathon server slam will not have Sekiguchi, so there will only be five) – you'll find details about each one further down in this article.

Each Faction offers contracts for you to complete, which are missions that task you with finding, looting, killing, or otherwise interacting with things during runs. Complete a contract and you'll get loot in return, including useful gear and resources.

There are three types of contracts: standard, boosted, and priority:

• Standard contracts are simple and repeatable missions you can complete for the given faction.
• Boosted contracts have more specific requirements but offer better rewards.
• Priority contracts are one-time missions that are essential to the faction and must be completed to increase your Faction Rank. These contracts are also the most narratively significant, if you're interested in piecing together Marathon's story.

You'll get faction reputation from contracts, which you also get simply from extracting with an active contract. Earning reputation for a faction goes towards increasing your rank with that faction (along with completing priority contracts), granting you access to superior seasonal upgrades, starting loadouts, increased vault space, black-market gear, and more – bear in mind you'll have to pay for it all with your own resources.

Yes, that's seasonal faction upgrades. While we don’t have exact details on how seasons and resets will work, it sounds to me like faction upgrades will only be temporary upgrades, meaning you'll have to rank up and unlock upgrades all over again – if you've played Destiny 2, I imagine faction upgrades are essentially like the Seasonal Artifact and its unlockable perks, except on a larger scale and more resource intensive.

All Marathon factions

Here are the six main factions in Marathon that you can work for, and their places in the world:

• CyberAcme: Often referred to as CyAc, this megacorporation's expertise lies in digital technology and artificial intelligence functionality. All Marathon Runner Shells have its Onboard Navigation Intelligence (ONI) installed to give you some basic directions. CyberAcme is essentially the all-rounder starter faction for beginners.
• NuCaloric: NuCaloric Agricultural is a major food production company in the world of Marathon that seeks to ensure humanity's survival by providing the basics. It had a major stake in the Tau Ceti colony and, with the help of their agent Gaius, seeks to understand how the mission failed by getting Runners to gather historical data.
• Traxus: Traxus OffWorld Industries is apparently the most powerful corporation in human history, and uses that power to get whatever they want. Through their agent Vulcan, you'll be tasked with salvaging valuables for Traxus to recoup losses on its investment in the UESC Marathon mission to Tau Ceti and subsequent collapse of the colony.
• MIDA: This political-party-turned-terrorist-group from Mars saw the UESC Marathon as a symbol of oppression in the original 1994 game. As such, through their agent Gantry, they want to see the UESC, the corporations, and the colony by association, burned to the ground.
• Arachne: Arachne is a mysterious death cult focused on the thermodynamics of violence and pushing your Shell to its limits, which manifests as a very PvP-focused faction in-game. The organization's agent, Charter, would very much like you to kill your fellow Runners.
• Sekiguchi: Sekiguchi Genetics is the company behind the Runner Shells known as biomata – essentially robot bodies created by the company's WEAVEworms. Not much else is really known about them, other than that their agent is called Nona.

There is of course the UESC too, the primary antagonistic faction of Marathon. They are the enemy of all Runners, sending sophisticated humanoid combat drones to patrol the Tau Ceti IV colony and kill any intruders. As such, you will fight the UESC a lot, but you can't represent them and complete Contracts for them in the same way as the six factions listed above.

We've also seen S'pht compilers, cyborg aliens that can interface with humanity's digital technology, teased briefly, indicating that the alien threats from the original Marathon series in the 1990s will make an appearance.

The loot that factions reward you with might include Marathon Cores, and you'll get to see some of these in the server slam. Beyond that, the Marathon release date isn't far off either.

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