Even before the release, Marathon players were calling for duos. Now comes a playlist for teams of two – initially as a test run.
Marathon can currently be played either solo or in a team of three, but there is no real duos playlist – unless you start a trios round with a partner from your friends list and switch off the auto-fill via matchmaking (in which case you are outnumbered). This is now set to change.
Duos in Marathon at last
Fans have been calling for a dedicated duos mode ever since the Server Slam. Head developer Joe Ziegler from Bungie has now announced exactly that in a post on social media.
However, the concept is still in its infancy and is therefore being rolled out explicitly as an experiment for the time being.
Here are the key facts:
- Duos are available from March 18 at 7 p.m.
- time can be played.
- There is no duo matchmaking, so you need a fixed partner.
- Duo matches are only playable on the Perimeter map until further notice.
- On April 1, the duos playlist will be deactivated and evaluated again.
Ziegler explicitly warns that Duo players can expect some “rough edges” in this test run – he describes the campaign as a test run to be able to expand Duos into a fully-fledged feature later on.
“We’re going a bit wild now and Duos could […] end up looking very different from this experiment,” says Ziegler. “We’ll see how it goes and how it feels and that’s the easiest way to try it out with you now.”
“Just try stuff out”
In the long term, duos are to be established as a permanent option alongside solos and trios.
Fans praise Bungie’s fast and iterative approach to adding new updates for Marathon.
On Reddit one user commented: “I have to say, I just love that the devs are taking this ‘fuck it, let’s just try stuff out’ approach.” He gets 1,600 upvotes for it.
Another user agrees and adds: “Not only that – they do it very quickly. Respect that they respond so quickly.”
Shortly after the release of Marathon, the first update took some fan requests into account.
And more content will follow soon: The new endgame map Cryo Archive, which takes us to the eponymous spaceship Marathon, will be released in March.
A major update is also planned for April – including new cyber implants and weapons. In Season 2, the first new playable runner shell called Sentinel will be released in summer 2026.
