Marathon season 2 is kicking off with a free week so new players can try Bungie’s extraction shooter out on a ‘clean slate’

Marathon’s second season is just days away from kicking off, and amid all the changes and hype its devs are spreading the word that its first week will be free to play for those prospective players who’ve been too stingy to try it out so far (me).

“Season 2 begins on June 2 and kicks off with an Open Play Week from June 2 to June 9,” a blog post explains. “During the Open Play Week, the full game will be available to play on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and any progress you make will carry over into Season 2. This will be a great time to invite your friends to crew up as everyone will be starting out on a clean slate.” All you have to bring is internet access which requires a paid-for subscription on console (classic).

If you do decide to make the jump then waiting for you will be pure chaos in season 2 by the sound of things. “The narrative theme of season 2 is escalation. The UESC is tired of getting pushed around by the runners and they’re fighting back,” Nick Ardizzone, associate narrative director, says in a dev diary. “As their opposition escalates, so too does the anomaly. One of your jobs is to find out why.”

Alongside this narrative shift players will be able to find new places of interest, housing high level loot like the Observation science deck where UESC has been studying the anomaly. And will also experience “Psychosis” and “hallucinations” as this pitch black map begins to mess you up—you do get a flashlight though, so not all is lost.

Season 2 also comes with a bunch of resets, changes, and additions. There’s two new guns: the D54 Battle Pistol with an integrated retina optic and the KKV, a small arms SMG with an integrated suppressor that’s apparently “excellent at mowing down anything immediately right in front of you”. Honestly, that last one may be enough on its own to convince me to try Marathon’s second season out.

All of these changes and additions are to ensure everyone “gets this fresh start and they have the chance to go back through that journey from zero to hero,” Emanuel Rosu, production director, explains.

“The seasonal reset allows us to change the journey of the things that you’re going to care about,” Brenton Woodrow, senior design lead, adds. “When a player starts a new season I want them to feel like we’ve been able to recapture the magic of week one of Marathon’s launch. Everything’s new, you don’t know what’s valuable yet, that feel of discovery is going to be exciting and push you to new stories and new journeys along your seasonal progression.”