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Our Marathon guide will teach you all the basics of this ruthless extraction shooter so that you can loot, exfil, upgrade, and repeat. Marathon takes the basic premise of Bungie's mid-1990s shooter series and lobs it into the modern age, turning it into a multiplayer-only PvPvE FPS. It’s not a direct sequel though, so you don't need to know anything going in. That means you can enjoy its incredibly rich world and sandbox, with plenty of places to explore and plunder on Tau Ceti IV and lots of guns and gear to wrap your head around. However, it's also a serious trial by fire, especially for new players, so here you'll find all our Marathon guides conveniently compiled in one place.
Marathon review
If you're on the fence, you can read what we thought of Bungie's cutthroat extraction shooter in our glowing Marathon review. We praised its intensity, slick PvP, and excellent setting and art direction, but weren't fond of its complex UI and somewhat clunky inventory management.
Marathon platforms
You can play Marathon right now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Playing with a Bungie account linked to your platforms also means the game has full cross-platform play and progression, meaning you can play with and against players on different platforms to you and you can even switch platforms without losing anything or having to start over.
Marathon basics
Marathon is a complicated game with a lot to learn and get used to, especially if you've not played any extraction shooters before. Death might be the first step, but we also strongly recommend checking out our beginner Marathon tips so that you can get off to a flying start and maximize your chances of success on each run.
After completing the tutorial, you'll get to play Marathon properly and can begin your first contract – it's very simple but since Tau Ceti is so dangerous, a helping hand in the form of our guide on how to complete Welcome to Tau Ceti in Marathon, might be worthwhile. After that, you'll start unlocking more of the Marathon maps, starting with Dire Marsh.
Being an online multiplayer game that is updated regularly and occasionally brought offline for maintenance also means Marathon error codes can happen unexpectedly, so it's best to know how to deal with these when they strike.
Marathon gear
Marathon is all about collecting gear to assemble into a cohesive loadout of guns and implants that will help you survive battles against the UESC, other players, and the environment and further facilitate loot-gathering:
- Best Marathon weapons: There's a huge selection of weapons you can find, loot, and buy, giving you plenty of options.
- Best Marathon Runner Shells: Each playable characters comes with its own suite of abilities, but some are better than others.
- Marathon Cores: These implants enhance your Shell's abilities even further.
So those are some of the most important parts of your loadout, with weapons and cores being items you can easily loot or buy from the Armory. Speaking of which, you should keep an eye out for Marathon Schemas during runs to expand your Armory with options you can't buy elsewhere, including especially rare guns. Keep an eye out for special loot events and challenges, such as Marathon Tox Clear rooms full of loot, to help you gather the best possible stuff.
Your guns and shells can also be customized with unique skins and more. Many items can be unlocked by completing Codex challenges, but you'll also earn Marathon Silk as you level up, which can then be spent on items in Reward Passes. There are also occasionally Marathon Twitch Drops that allow you to get items for watching streamers.
Marathon factions
There are six Marathon factions to unlock and complete contracts for, with each one expanding your Armory and providing new purchasing options. Each organization also has its own suite of Marathon faction upgrades that improve your Runner's stats, Rook's starting kit, their respective Armory offerings, and more.
However, to unlock a faction, you need to complete its introductory liaison contract from CyberAcme, which you'll unlock as you play Marathon and by unlocking other factions. Some of them aren't as straightforward as the others, so here are some guides on how to unlock certain factions:
- How to complete introducing NuCaloric
- How to complete introducing Traxus
- How to complete introducing Sekiguchi
Marathon contracts
Once you've unlocked a faction, you'll gain access to its quest-like priority contracts, which can be quite obtuse and challenging – I highly recommend learning where you can find Marathon DCONs as they come up a lot in these contracts. These pointers for some of the early priority contract questlines should therefore help you out:
- Traxus:
- Sekiguchi:
Cryo Archive
Once you've levelled up enough and gathered plenty of loot, you'll meet the Cryo Archive requirements and can head into the special endgame map for Marathon's ultimate challenge and a shot at the game's best loot. Underestimating Cryo Archive and not understanding how it works is a fatal error that will see you lose your best gear, so make sure you read our Cryo Archive guide for the basics and definitely make sure you know how Cryo Archive exfil works, as it's different to every other map.
Marathon might be one of the best FPS games you can play right now
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