Bungie is turning Marathon’s loot dial to 11 ahead of its first wipe, opening up Cryo Archive 24/7

As much as I love Marathon, its progression hits like a brick wall after a few dozen hours. Quests become longer multi-step treks across maps around the same time high-tier upgrades start asking for dozens of items that I’ve encountered maybe four times.

These are issues that Bungie is seemingly testing against in an “end of season’ update coming on May 19. The big highlight? Locked room keys—an extremely rare drop that grants access to the best loot rooms on Tau Ceti—are becoming guaranteed drops for on-map events.

“Locked room keys are guaranteed to drop from Wardens for the remainder of the season,” the Bungie blog post reads. “Additionally, map events like Intercept, Lockdown, Warden spawns, Convoy, and Anomaly will now be guaranteed on each run, so you can benefit from their better rewards even more often.”

On top of that, Warden bosses will now appear at more locations on Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost. Sounds like room keys will go from a thing that I just expect to never have to a regular occurrence in Marathon’s loot pool, which is definitely a good thing.

And hey, Bungie’s taking the orange cones off the entrance to Cryo Archive. The raid map will be open 24/7 for the remainder of season 1. At the same time, Ranked Cryo Archive is also coming—that playlist will have a low stakes 3,000 credit buy-in and a high stakes 10,000 credit buy-in.

A few other ways Marathon is either speeding things up or getting generous:

• Faction experience gains are increased “across the board” for the rest of season 1
• Key templates will no longer break if you’re downed. Instead, you can turn templates into keys by finding a Matter Fixative item dropped by UESC bots (similar to keeping your free kit in a Rook run).
• Wall safes will now have a chance of dropping deluxe keys
• Quick Rook runs will be more convenient, as the Signal Mask ability will last longer while sprinting

Bungie is specifying which of these changes are only for the rest of season 1, but the studio has a track record of experimenting with changes that become permanent shortly after, so consider any of this stuff on the table to stick around. What is definitely happening, as the blog specifies, is faster faction progression.

“Season 2: Nightfall begins on June 2 and brings the new Night Marsh zone, a new Runner shell, new weapons, a new system to customize your Runner shell stats called The Cradle, faster faction progression, several quality-of-life updates based on your feedback, and more. Stay tuned for more details about Season 2, with full reveals coming the week of May 25.”