The six Marathon factions all promise upgrades and rewards so long as you complete their contracts as a mercenary-for-hire and further their interests. Priority contracts are one of the main ways you'll see Marathon's narrative unfold but the broader contracts and factions system is also crucial to substantially enhancing your Runner's capabilities and the gear they can access for their loadout. Unsurprisingly, that means it's quite complicated too, so here's a rundown of all six factions in Marathon, how to unlock them, how their contracts work, and how to earn reputation.
How to unlock Marathon factions and their contracts
To unlock a faction in Marathon, you need to complete its liaison contract, given to you by ONI once you've progressed far enough and often only once you've unlocked other factions first. After completing the liaison contract, you can start earning reputation, unlock upgrades with Salvage and Credits, and take on its contracts – as our Marathon tips say, you should never start a run without one!
- Standard contracts are simple challenges that offer basic faction rewards upon completion. There's no limit to the number of standard contracts you can complete for a faction, but they all offer only one at a time. If you don't like what they're offering, you can spend Credits on limited re-rolls and get a new standard contract.
- Priority contracts are one-time missions that are essential to the faction and offer superior rewards. These contracts are also the most narratively significant if you're interested in piecing together Marathon's story.
Regardless of the type of contract, they'll usually task you with finding, looting, killing, destroying, or otherwise interacting with things during runs across the various Marathon maps, sometimes requiring you to complete every objective in a single run. You can also have only one contract active at a time, but once you've completed it, you can submit it to the faction's agent and get loot in return, including Marathon weapons and resources. And if you're playing with a crew, contract progress is shared, and you'll even get some faction reputation when they complete their objectives.
You'll also get faction reputation from completed contracts, but each faction has other ways to earn reputation based around their ideals – I've laid these out for each faction below. Earning reputation goes towards increasing your rank with that faction, granting you access to superior seasonal upgrades which must then be unlocked with the required Credits and Salvage. These upgrades include things like improved sponsored loadouts, increased vault space, access to better gear from their Armory, improved base stats for your Runner Shells, and enhancements for Rook.
Yes, that's seasonal faction upgrades. The start of a new season in Marathon also includes a total wipe of all your faction progress, meaning you'll have to rank up and unlock upgrades all over again.
All Marathon factions
Here are the six main factions in Marathon that you can work for and their places in the world in the order that their liaison contracts should become available to you:
CyberAcme (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 in exchange for gathering information on the fate of the New Cascadia colony. CyberAcme is essentially the faction for beginners.
- How to gain reputation: Complete CyberAcme contracts, exfil from runs, activate TADs during runs, and join in with Intercept events
- Rank-up rewards: Ammo, Torso Implants, and Backpacks
- Armory offerings: Ammo, basic weapons, backpacks, and keys
NuCaloric (NuCal)
- NuCaloric Agricultural is a major food production company in the universe 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.
- How to gain reputation: Complete NuCaloric contracts and exfil with NuCaloric valuables
- Rank-up rewards: Consumables, NuCaloric Salvage items, and Implants
- Armory offerings: Consumables and Implants
Traxus
- Traxus OffWorld Industries is 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.
- How to gain reputation: Complete Traxus contracts, loot arms lockers, tool carts, and transport drones, destroy UESC drones, complete Convoy and Lockdown events, and exfil with Traxus valuables
- Rank-up rewards: Weapon chip mods, Traxus Salvage items, and a weapon
- Armory offerings: Weapons and mods of all kinds
MIDA
- This political-party-turned-anarchist-terrorist-group from Mars saw the UESC Marathon as a symbol of oppression in the original 1994 game. Through their agent Gantry, they want to see the UESC and corporations burned to the ground but may have other goals associated with the colony itself.
- How to gain reputation: Complete MIDA contracts, loot lockboxes and munitions crates, find coordinates and loot caches, complete secured resource events, and exfil with MIDA valuables
- Rank-up rewards: Equipment, MIDA Salvage items, and Leg Implants
- Armory offerings: Grenades, gadgets, and Implants
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.
- How to gain reputation: Complete Arachne contracts, Loot other Runners, down Runners with precision damage, perform finishers on Runners, and exfil with Arachne valuables
- Rank-up rewards: Non-chip weapon mods, Arachne Salvage items, and a weapon
- Armory offerings: Weapons, mods, and Implants
Sekiguchi (SekGen)
- Sekiguchi Genetics is the company behind the Marathon Runner Shells known as biomata – essentially robot bodies created by the company's WEAVEworms that can be controlled with a digital mind. Not much else is really known about them other than that their agent is called Nona.
- How to gain reputation: Complete Sekiguchi contracts, exfil with Sekiguchi valuables, ???
- Rank-up rewards: ???
- Armory offerings: Marathon Cores and Implants
There is of course the UESC too, the primary antagonistic faction of Marathon. They are the enemy of all Runners, sending sophisticated humanoid combat robots and drones to patrol the ruined Tau Ceti IV colony and kill any intruders. As such, you fill 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 from the 1990s will make an appearance. It seems like there is one aboard the UESC Marathon which players will likely face in the Cryo Vault Marathon map.
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