How to get Marathon Schemas and how to use them

Marathon V00 ZEUS railgun Schema in reward pass — (Image credit: Bungie)

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How Schemas work
Where to find Schemas

Marathon Schemas are a loot item that unlocks new and sometimes rare gear for your Armory without needing faction upgrades. They're Marathon's answer to crafting recipes or blueprints, but there's no crafting involved as just Schema gear with Credits. They're a little confusing at first since they don't appear to do very much but can be very useful, so here are the key things to know about Schemas in Marathon.

How Marathon Schemas work and what to do with them

Marathon Schema distance runner implant in armory — (Image credit: Bungie)

Marathon Schemas are a rare type of loot that, when exfiltrated, unlock a limited supply of a particular gear item, such as a weapon or Implant, for purchase in your Armory. Upon exfiltrating, you'll automatically unlock the relevant gear for purchase on the right side of the Armory menu, just below the Sponsored Kits section, with each item costing Credits to buy.

Schemas for weapons add three of that weapon to your Armory stock while Implant and Equipment Schemas add five of that item to your stock, and the stocks stack if you find the same Schema more than once. However, once a Schema's stock runs out, it is removed from your Armory and the only way to purchase the item again is to find the same Schema again, though some of the best Marathon faction upgrades might be able to help you too.

You can find Schemas for all sorts of Marathon weapons, Cores, Implants, and equipment for your loadout so getting a variety of Schemas can help fill in some Armory gaps. There are even weapons that not even the Marathon factions can help you buy as they seem to be obtainable only by finding a Schema, making them very rare.

Where to find Schemas in Marathon

Marathon Schema distance runner implant loot — (Image credit: Bungie)

Schemas can be found basically anywhere on any of the Marathon maps but aren’t common, so finding them is largely down to pure luck. From my time playing, I've found several Schemas in the yellow and orange containers held by UESC cargo drones but this might be more of a coincidence.

Additionally, Reward Passes contain some free Schema which are available to all players at the cost of some Marathon Silk, letting you get some of the more exotic weapons without having to loot them.

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Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.