Marathon has tweaked its "item economy," now offering one free Cryo Archive Sponsored Kit each week to make it easier to participate in its weekend-only endgame zone, the Cryo Archive.
Cryo Archive doubled down on the ultra hardcore Marathon experience, with several requirements you needed to meet in order to access it. As an extraction shooter, Marathon can be brutal; if you fail to exfil at the end of a game, you lose everything you took in with you, including your weapons and consumables. But Cryo Archive is even harder to get into, because your loadout needs to be worth at least 5,000 credits just to play.
Marathon players had called on Bungie to make Cryo Archive more accessible by giving all players the free loadout that was offered when the map launched once per week, and now it's in the game.
Former professional Counter-Strike player, Shroud, has said that while Cryo Archive offers an incredible experience, it's too difficult for casual players. Speaking in a recent stream, the influential gamer said: "Cryo Archive is insane. It's the most elaborate extraction shooter map I've ever seen in a game ever. The loop that they made is truly something special. The problem is, is it too elaborate? Is it too complex? Is it too much of a grind? Is your 9-5 grandma and grandpa going to be able to do it? I don't know."
Meanwhile, update 1.0.6.2 also fixed an issue that prevented Rooks from spawning with the same six depleted Shield Charges and Health Kits that all runners get, and addressed a couple of UI bugs, too.
Interestingly, the WSTR combat shotgun has been tweaked once again, suggesting Bungie still isn't happy with it. After last week's nerf, the WSTR has now had its damage increased, up from 78 to 85, and its critical multiplier reduced from 1.15x to 1.05x. You'll also find that it now does an additional 75% damage bonus against AI targets.
Overall, players seem delighted to have a free Cryo Archive Sponsored Kit each weekend, and the hope is the raid's player population will increase as a result. Players also seem played that Bungie is "open to re-buffing weapons as a form of iteration, rather then [sic] nerfing something and leaving it useless."
"I'd bet money that the server stats for the WSTR were significantly worse than they expected post nerf," suggested one player. "When it struggles to two-tap a white shield bot and a DBNO runner, you know it was too heavy-handed. The +75% damage to bots proves this too." In response, another wrote: "Still wish they would have nerfed the fire rate instead of the damage. A double-barreled that doesn't hit hard feels off, and fire rate nerfs would be a more elegant solution to bring it in line with Misriah and circuit breaker, as well as reduce the necessity of stack overflow."
One Bungie fan with a long memory joked: "I'll never forget what they did to my sweet Halo 2 pistol, it never returned to its former glory."
These changes are the latest of many. Just last week, Marathon doubled the amount of Depleted Patch Kits (meds) and Depleted Shield Charges (armor) consumables players could carry in a single inventory slot as Bungie bid to make its extraction shooter less punishing for newbies. The week before, Bungie's boldest attempt yet went live, introducing the CyberAcme Runner Reinforcement Initiative (C.A.R.R.I.), a "new protocol from ONI that rewards solo Runners and coordinated crews for completing contract objectives and exfiling together."
Here are the full patch notes:
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
