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Marathon is out. The queue is open. And if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing, we've got you covered
Marathon Beginner’s Guide
Congratulations. You've chosen to play Marathon: a game where you will die repeatedly, lose all your gear to a season timer, and then boot it up again the next evening with a sense of optimism that frankly deserves clinical attention.
Whether you downloaded this because the trailer looked cool or because you enjoy suffering dressed up as a looter shooter, you're here now. There are no refunds on life choices, and the queue isn't going to be short either.
What follows are 101 tips, originally delivered straight-faced by someone who clearly loves this game. We have translated them into the language of people who've already made peace with dying a lot. Read them. Absorb them. Then ignore them entirely during your first ten matches and blame your teammates.
- Why does sprinting fill a bar that then stops me from sprinting?
- If my gear expires at the end of the season anyway, why am I even trying?
- How do I tell if I'm invisible or just in a dark room?
- What exactly is a 'boss Xfill' and why does extracting require defeating a boss?
- If the Rook mode is for learning, why am I still being shot at?
- Did they put tiny exploding alien bugs in here on purpose?
- Is there a mode where my teammates actually notice I've been downed?
- Why does running with a knife out make me faster: and why did no one mention this sooner?
- If items gain value the longer I survive, but I keep dying, is this game philosophically broken?
- What exactly does 'Materialist' do? (Spoiler: nobody knows yet.)
One of Marathon's most philosophically confronting design choices is the season timer. Everything you lovingly grind for: guns, gear, implants: will vanish at season's end. Here is how to make peace with that before it force you to Marathon map raids help:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
USE / SELL |
Don't hoard gear. Sell what you won't use and fund the loadouts you actually want. ↳ That rare rifle you've been saving 'for the right moment' needs to go. The right moment was three deaths ago. |
|
SOLO MODE |
Don't confuse Solo and Solo No-Fill. No-Fill puts you into trio lobbies alone. ↳ One of these teaches humility immediately. The other also teaches humility, just more slowly. |
|
SPONSOR KITS |
These cost a few hundred credits but include weapons, ammo, AND full med stacks. Extremely good value. ↳ Think of it as paying rent for the privilege of not dying in the first 90 seconds. Totally normal. |
|
MOD SWAPS |
You can now remove mods from guns freely. Just loot the sights and chips you want off other people's weapons. ↳ Grave robbing, but make it tactical. Marathon: morally grey, mechanically rich. |
|
THE META |
Win more fights with gear you're comfortable with, regardless of what the meta says. ↳ The meta doesn't matter if you can't aim. Revolutionary insight. |
|
WEAPON CHIPS |
Chips can cause interesting effects such as explosions on kill or earning credits for AI drops. ↳ Slot a chip that rewards murder with more money. The economy of violence is thriving. |
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MECHANICS THAT EXIST TO RUIN YOUR DAY
Marathon has a lovingly designed collection of systems specifically engineered to catch you off-guard the moment you think you know what you're doing. Here is a selected tour of the highlights:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
HEAT BAR |
It's a reverse stamina bar. Sprint and slide to fill it. When full, you're locked out of moving fast until you cool down. ↳ The game politely asks you to stop running mid-fight. You will not enjoy this. |
|
RAIN & WATER |
Rain and deep water reduce heat generated. Getting wet helps you sprint longer. ↳ You optimized your entire loadout and the answer was 'jump in puddles.' Incredible. |
|
KNIFE SPEED |
Running with your knife out is faster than running with a gun. Use it when safe. ↳ Nothing says elite operator like sprinting across the battlefield waving a knife like a child. |
|
VENTS |
Vents provide unexpected routes into and out of buildings. Explore them. ↳ Classic. The architects maintained a legally mandated crawlspace-to-firefight ratio. |
|
TICKS |
Little alien bugs that chase and explode. Destroy their nests to stop spawning and collect loot. ↳ Congratulations. On top of everything else, there are tiny exploding alien bugs. |
|
DOWNED STATE |
Downed players can be finished or revived. There's a lockout timer after being fully boxed. ↳ You'll lie on the floor hoping your teammate notices. They won't. They're looting. |
|
SELF-REVIVE |
You can drop self-revive kits for downed teammates to use themselves. ↳ Your teammate crawled across the floor for their own resurrection kit. You provided zero cover. Teamwork. |
|
BUBBLE SHIELD |
Provides a free revive window or time to heal. Use it proactively. ↳ A magic bubble that buys you precious seconds before dying slightly later. |
THINGS THAT EXPLODE (AND ONE THAT HEALS YOU, SOMEHOW)
Marathon's utility toolkit is genuinely dangerous: to your enemies, to your allies, and occasionally to your own sense of self. Bring it all. Use it. Try not to throw a claymore at your own feet on day one.
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
GRENADES |
They deal considerable damage. Bring them. Use them. ↳ Revolutionary advice: use the explosive items. Groundbreaking. |
|
CLAYMORES |
Can be placed on floors AND on walls. Vertical placement is valid and encouraged. ↳ The most diabolical sentence in this guide. Your enemies won't see it coming. Neither will your teammates. |
|
CHEM GRENADES |
Damage over time directly to health, slows healing, AND leaves footprints in the residue. ↳ A grenade that hurts you, stops you healing, then leaves a trail to your hiding spot. A gift. |
|
PROX SENSOR |
Creates a miniature Blackbird scan to find nearby enemies. ↳ All the paranoia of being watched, now available in throwable form. |
|
FLECHETTE |
Guided needles that damage enemies and heal the user. ↳ A grenade that heals you while hurting them. Unclear what this has to do with balance. |
|
AMMO CRATE |
Deployable resupply crate. Allows your team to top off ammo mid-match. ↳ You can now run out of ammo AND have a solution. Previously you just died. |
|
THERMAL SCOPE |
Highlights players normally hidden by terrain. However, terrain itself becomes harder to see. ↳ Vision tradeoff: see the enemy, lose the ground. Net result: panic with better aim. |
LOOTING: YOUR ONE TRUE PURPOSE
You're not here to win fights. You're here to loot. The fights are merely annoying interruptions between containers. Here is how to be an efficient, ruthless raccoon:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
DATA CARDS |
Pick them up always. Credits go straight to your bank: even if you die after. ↳ One of the only things in this game you literally cannot fail at. And yet, some of you will still walk past them. |
|
WISHLIST |
Tag items as wishlisted. They get an eye icon so you can spot them mid-loot. ↳ A feature specifically for people who forgot what they wanted 30 seconds ago. So: everyone. |
|
SELL TOOLTIP |
Toggle on to see each item's sell value. No memorization required. ↳ You have been manually memorizing item values. There was a button. There was always a button. |
|
AUTO-SELL |
Useless loot sells itself automatically at match end. No sorting required. ↳ Marathon manages your estate sale for you. Thoughtful, really. |
|
SHARE LOOT |
Most purple/red items are shared on extract. Don't take them all from your team. ↳ The game kindly requests you not be insufferable. Whether that sticks is on you. |
|
VINTAGE ITEMS |
Vintage items gain value the longer you survive with them: and keep it even after death. ↳ Your suffering has resale value. The longer you live, the more your corpse is worth. |
|
HOARD MEDS |
In the alpha, medical items were obscenely expensive. Stockpile early to free up credits for gear. ↳ Become a doomsday prepper in a video game. Maintain a 'nest egg' of bandages. Peak gaming. |
|
CONTAINERS |
Core storage boxes usually have cores. Weapon lockers usually have weapons and ammo. ↳ The containers labelled 'weapon locker' contain weapons. Yes, this is in the tip list. |
GETTING OUT (STATISTICALLY UNLIKELY, BUT THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE)
The objective, nominally, is to extract. This means leaving the map alive with loot intact. Marathon provides two flavours of extract, one final chance, and an absolute hard deadline that has no sympathy for Marathon faction help.
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
CREW XFILL |
Standard extract. Activate the 30-second warm-up, survive, and leave. ↳ Thirty seconds in Marathon is an eternity. Start praying immediately. |
|
BOSS XFILL |
Spawns a UESC boss wave on the extract point during the 30-second warm-up. ↳ Option wait. Option B: wait while fighting a boss. Marathon respects your time. |
|
FINAL EXTRACT |
If time runs out, a single final extract opens to all players. Miss the timer and lose everything. ↳ The game locks the door with you still inside if you're too slow. Motivational game design. |
|
KEYS |
Most keys can be extracted and brought into future matches. Some location-specific keys (e.g. Outpost Pinwheel) cannot. ↳ Some keys are reusable assets. Some are consumable puzzles. The game does not always explain which. |
THE MAP IS TRYING TO KILL YOU (SPECIFICALLY)
Marathon's maps are living, breathing arenas designed to punish overconfidence and reward people who actually checked the map tooltips. Here is a brief tour of your future crime scenes:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
PERIMETER |
Balanced starter map with safe rotation routes. Great for avoiding snipers. Recommended for beginners. ↳ 'Safe' is relative here. This is still an alien warzone. Manage expectations accordingly. |
|
FIELD MAINTENANCE |
Good source of Putty for early crafting upgrades. ↳ You crossed a combat zone to collect video game spackle. Glorious. |
|
OUTPOST |
Short-range focused. Shotguns and SMGs are king here. Snipers will suffer. ↳ If you brought a sniper to Outpost, congratulations: you are the content for everyone else. |
|
PINWHEEL |
Find all the Outpost keys to unlock the Pinwheel room. Contains a dragon's horde of loot. ↳ Multi-step optional fetch quest. Reward: 'a lot of stuff.' Extremely normal in a shooter. |
|
FOG |
When fog rolls in mid-match, use it as a flanking opportunity rather than panicking. ↳ The correct response to 'I cannot see anything' is apparently 'attack.' Noted. |
|
TAD DEVICE |
Scans for nearby hostiles when activated. Players can see the scan pulses when it fires. ↳ A radar that tells your enemies you're using the radar. Mutual assured paranoia. |
|
MAP TOOLTIPS |
Always check map tooltips to see what loot types are likely in each area. ↳ The map has a built-in cheat sheet. You've been ignoring it this entire time. That's fine. |
RUNNERS: CHOOSE YOUR FLAVOUR OF SUFFERING
Each runner has a unique kit that requires a unique approach to failing. Unique stats that can be tuned. Unique abilities that sound great until you forget how they work mid-fight. Herein lies a brief character sheet of doom:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
ASSASSIN: CLOAK |
Scope glint still shows while invisible. Enemies WILL see it. ↳ You paid the invisibility premium and got spotted by scope glare. A metaphor for many things. |
|
ASSASSIN: REGEN |
Healing and reviving break invisibility temporarily, then restore it. ↳ Your stealth has 'moments of vulnerability.' Just like your confidence. |
|
DESTROYER: THRUST |
Use thrusters laterally to be harder to hit and close distances fast. ↳ Destroyer mains: loud, fast, convinced they're unkillable. Correct until they aren't. |
|
DESTROYER: S&D |
Search and Destroy barely triggers in 1v1. It shines against multiple enemies. ↳ Your ultimate ability is functionally useless in a fair fight. Lean into the chaos. |
|
RECON: PING |
Your interrogation passive pings last longer with a higher Ping Duration stat. Build for it. ↳ The character class that rewards being nosy about everyone's location at all times. |
|
RECON: DRONE |
Tracker drone is relentless. It chases targets through walls and around corners aggressively. ↳ Recon's drone will hunt your enemies with a dedication your squadmates will never match. |
|
THIEF: VISOR |
X-ray visor highlights enemies and loot and stuns AI. Does NOT work through smoke. ↳ The world's most powerful visor. Defeated by a 3-credit smoke grenade. Perfect. |
|
THIEF: DRONE |
Drone can destroy vents and open doors. ↳ Architectural violence at your fingertips. Great utility. Nobody reads tooltips. |
|
TRIAGE: REVIVE |
One revive can win a fight. You don't always need to resurrect both teammates. ↳ Very low bar set here. And yet. |
|
TRIAGE: ULT |
Ultimate can revive fully boxed teammates and bypasses the lockout timer. Use it aggressively. ↳ Triage can resurrect the dead. Use it immediately. Stop 'saving it.' |
|
VANDAL: SLIDE |
NEVER slide into another player. Always slide sideways. ↳ There is one rule for Vandal. One. And yet here we are writing it in bold. |
|
TRIAGE: MEDS |
Give extra meds to your Triage player so the med drone passive can share them back. ↳ The healer needs your bandages to heal you. This sentence should not need to exist. |
STATS: A SPREADSHEET THAT OCCASIONALLY SHOOTS BACK
Marathon has a rich stat system built to make you feel like optimizing a character sheet is the same as being good at the game. It is not. But here's what everything does, plus a reality check:
|
STAT |
WHAT IT DOES |
SARCASTIC REALITY CHECK |
|
Heat Capacity |
Increases total size of heat bar: effectively your stamina. |
The stat that determines how long you can sprint before the game politely asks you to stop. |
|
Agility |
Movement speed and jump height. |
Go fast or die slow. Or go fast AND die slow. Marathon is flexible. |
|
Loot Speed |
Faster identification of items inside containers. |
Optimizing how quickly you empty other people's virtual cabinets. Living the dream. |
|
Self-Repair Speed |
Increases passive regen rate and reduces delay before it begins. |
This does NOT restart a broken shield. The game will not explain this. You will learn the hard way. |
|
Finisher Siphon |
Fast shield recharge after finishing an enemy. |
Rewarded for finishing enemies. Punished for mercy. Great values. |
|
Revive Speed |
Faster teammate revives AND faster self-revives while downed. |
Yes, your own self-revive speed is a stat. The injured helping the injured. |
|
Hardware |
Reduces duration of immobilize and toxin effects. |
A defensive stat that reduces how long the game is actively mean to you. |
|
Firewall |
Reduces duration of hacked and EMP effects. |
Digital resistance. Because getting hacked mid-fight wasn't in the original plan. |
|
Fall Resistance |
Reduces fall damage taken. |
Named correctly. Exists because players jumped off things. You will too. |
|
Ping Duration |
Extends how long enemy tags remain visible: crucial for Recon. |
Recon players: this is your bread and butter. Minimum investment. Maximum stalking. |
|
Melee Damage |
Increases damage per melee hit. |
For the moment you run out of bullets and everything else goes wrong simultaneously. |
CONTRACTS & VENDORS: THE BUREAUCRACY OF MURDER
Between sessions of getting shot, Marathon kindly asks you to complete homework. There are quest chains, reputation systems, vendor tiers, and a level cap that will stop you cold if you ignore the main story. Welcome to the administrative side of combat:
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
PRIORITY QUESTS |
Main story quests that raise your vendor level cap. Non-optional. ↳ The game will send you a very passive-aggressive wall when you've been avoiding these long enough. |
|
BOOSTED CONTRACTS |
Give substantially more rep than standard contracts. Choose them when available. ↳ Two types of side quest. The game tells you which is better. You'll still pick wrong sometimes. |
|
CYBERME FIRST |
Cyberme has the most storage and convenience upgrades. Level them early each season. ↳ Storage is freedom. Freedom is not dying because your backpack was full. |
|
NUCALORIC |
Advanced medical items for space efficiency and survival. Level second. ↳ Nucaloric will keep you alive longer. Arguably relevant. |
|
CONTAINER REP |
Cyberme gains rep when you open new containers mid-match. ↳ Being a nosy snoop is officially encouraged and rewarded. Your moral arc is complete. |
|
LEVEL CAP WALL |
If your priority quests are incomplete, vendor rep will hard-cap. You must do them. ↳ Surprise bureaucracy. Enjoy the wall. Do your homework. |
|
ONE CONTRACT |
You can only have one active contract at a time. Check between matches. ↳ It's not complicated. It is however the thing you'll forget right up until it costs you progress. |
ROOK RUNNER: THE TUTORIAL THAT HATES YOU
Rook Runner is Marathon's dedicated low-stakes learning mode. You spawn solo with random low-value gear into an active trio match in progress. It's designed to be chill. It is not chill. It is simply cheaper.
|
TIP |
WHAT THEY SAY / WHAT IT REALLY MEANS |
|
NO QUEST PROGRESS |
You cannot advance vendor rep or priority quests as Rook. Explore and earn cash only. ↳ You cannot actually progress at the things that matter in the mode built for learning. This is fine. |
|
MAP LEARNING |
Use Rook runs to explore layouts, rotation routes, and loot locations freely. ↳ 'Freely' meaning you're still in an active warzone with random strangers who have better guns. |
|
QUICK CASH |
Good for scavenging credits quickly when you're broke. ↳ Rook is the informal economy of Marathon. Work for tips. Occasionally get shot. |
|
VOIP CHAOS |
Great for relaxed matches with open mic communication: apparently the Rook lobby is lively. ↳ There is apparently a social scene in the tutorial mode. This community is something else. |
There you have it. One hundred and one tips, neatly organized into the sections covering everything from gear management to runner abilities, stat builds to vendor bureaucracy. They are all real, useful, and battle-tested by people with far more patience and significantly better aim than you.
Marathon is a game that punishes hesitation, rewards preparation, and occasionally drops an exploding alien bug on your head for fun. The tips above are sound. You will nonetheless ignore several of them during your first ten matches, make an impulsive decision in a firefight, and watch your carefully curated loadout evaporate in real time.
That is, apparently, the point. Die, learn, extract, repeat. The season timer is ticking. The queue is open. You're going to be fine. Probably.
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Marathon Beginner’s Guide FAQ
What happens to my gear at the end of the season?
It's gone. All of it. The season timer removes everything. Use it, sell it, or watch it disappear. This is intentional and, somehow, a feature.
What's the difference between Solo and Solo No-Fill?
Solo No-Fill puts you alone into trio lobbies. Solo Only is genuine 1v1. One of these is a tutorial. The other is a trap. The game labels both 'Solo.'
Why does running with a knife make me faster?
It just does. Marathon's movement physics favour the knife-out state. Sprint with it when safe. Put it away when it's not. Try not to overthink it.
Can I actually lose money by dying?
Data card credits are banked immediately and cannot be lost. Other loot on your person can be taken by enemies or lost on death. Pick up data cards.
Is Rook Runner a good way to learn the game?
It's good for map knowledge and low-pressure exploration. It cannot advance your quests or vendor rep. Think of it as a paid internship with random gunfire.
What does 'boxed' mean?
Fully dead, as opposed to 'downed but not out.' Boxed teammates have a lockout timer before they can be revived: unless Triage pops their ultimate, which bypasses it.
Which runner should I start with as a beginner?
Recon or Triage offer the most readable feedback loops: tracking pings and team heals. Assassin sounds cool until you forget scope glint still shows while invisible.
Do I need to memorize item sell values?
No. Toggle on the sell value tooltip in settings. It shows exactly what each item is worth. This feature exists. You are welcome.
What are vintage and bloodthirsty item modifiers?
Vintage items increase in value every time you successfully extract with them. Bloodthirsty weapons gain value with each enemy downed, and reset if you are downed. Stack kills. Don't die.
What happens if the match timer runs out before I extract?
A single final extract opens to every player simultaneously with a hard timer. If you aren't inside the circle when it closes, you lose your run and all loot. The game has no sympathy for slow players.
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