Marathon gets big patch

Bungie pushed Marathon Update 1.0.6.1 on April 21, cutting back the WSTR shotgun and fixing inventory bugs that could eat players’ loot. (bungie.net) The official patch notes say Depleted Patch Kits and Depleted Shield Charges now stack to six instead of three, Standard Sponsored Kits now come in stacks of six, and recruits drop basic healing and armor items more often. (bungie.net) Bungie also said it increased the size of the overflow inventory after players ran into cases where items could be lost when overflow space filled up. The same update fixed a Cryo Archive out-of-bounds exploit, a Perimeter tutorial exfil timer bug, and a V85 Circuit Breaker hit-registration issue. (bungie.net) The weapon change centered on the WSTR Combat Shotgun, which Bungie said was producing “extreme outlier kills” at long range. A missing note added later on April 21 said the MIPS Slug Converter mod’s long-range slug performance was adjusted while the studio works on a broader balance pass. (bungie.net) Marathon is a player-versus-player-versus-environment extraction shooter, which means squads enter a map, fight other players and computer-controlled enemies, and try to leave with gear they can use in later matches. Bungie’s website describes the game as a survival extraction first-person shooter set on Tau Ceti IV. (marathonthegame.com) That structure makes small inventory and weapon changes unusually visible, because stack sizes, loot loss, and one dominant gun can swing whether a run feels survivable or punishing. Bungie’s April 21 patch focused on exactly those pressure points: healing economy, overflow storage, exfil clarity, and a shotgun that had become a frequent complaint. (bungie.net) The update landed as Marathon also went on sale for the first time on at least one major storefront. Kotaku reported on April 21 that the Xbox Series X|S version had dropped 20% to $32, while Steam’s store page showed a 20% discount from $39.99 to $31.99. (kotaku.com) (steampowered.com) That sale reopened a debate over whether Bungie should keep Marathon as a $40 game or move some version of it toward free-to-play. Kotaku said players were already discussing options such as free weekends or making the game’s sponsored-kit mode free, while noting Bungie had not announced a free-to-play switch. (kotaku.com) Bungie’s public posture, for now, is continued live-service tuning rather than a business-model change. On Marathon’s homepage, Update 1.0.6.1 sits alongside Update 1.0.6 from April 14, showing a week-to-week cadence of fixes as the studio tries to steady the game after launch. (marathonthegame.com) For players, the immediate result is simpler: fewer lost items, more room for meds and shields, and a shotgun that should stop deleting people from ranges where a shotgun usually should not. (bungie.net)