Marathon Gets New Update for April 2026

A new update, version 1.0.5.3, is now available for Marathon. This update tweaks the Bubble Shield, melee combat, and other aspects of the game. Since its release in March, Marathon has been consistently improved with updates from Bungie, often based on what players have been saying. The community’s feedback has led to many helpful changes and the addition of new features.

Even though Bungie quickly addresses player feedback and Marathon had a strong launch, recent reports suggest the game’s player numbers are declining – a critical issue for a game that relies on a large community. There’s still reason to be optimistic, though. Marathon is halfway through its first season, and Bungie is planning a significant update mid-season, with even more content arriving in June when Season 2 begins.

Bungie is still refining its game, Marathon, with ongoing updates focused on improving the player experience. The latest update, version 1.0.5.3, includes changes to combat, specifically to the Bubble Shield and Melee attacks. The Bubble Shield is now considered a rarer item—a ‘Superior’ tier—and will be harder to find, especially in the beginning levels. While its overall health has been reduced by 33%, it’s now more resistant to damage from UESC enemies and no longer weak against Volt attacks.

We’ve adjusted melee combat to be a bit more challenging, particularly when fighting other players. The extra damage you could deal to enemies while sprinting (Runners) has been reduced from a maximum of 100% to 50%. We felt players were maxing out their melee damage too quickly, and we want upgrading your character to feel more rewarding. Melee damage against other enemy types, like the UESC, hasn’t changed. We’ve also slightly reduced how far you can lunge with melee attacks (by 10%) and made it a bit harder to hit targets at angles (reduced targeting angle by 20%).

Aside from these changes, the update is relatively minor. The big mid-season update for Marathon is coming on April 14th. Bungie also tweaked the Thief class to better handle slide-canceling while grappling. Players can now complete the Return On Investment contract from Traxus over multiple attempts, and a problem with extracting from the Cryo Archive map has been fixed.

Over the weekend, Bungie reduced the power of the popular Biotoxic Disinjector weapon in the endgame activity, Marathon. According to game director Joe Ziegler, the weapon’s damage was lowered by 35%. Ziegler also mentioned that further adjustments are possible, but the main reason for this change is that the Biotoxic Disinjector was too powerful, creating a noticeable advantage for players who had it over those who didn’t.

Balance the critic averages

Easy (6)Medium (8)Hard (10)

Critical Mass

Pick games to balance the averages.

Time: 00:00

Diff: —

Scales

Multiplier ×1.00

Left

Avg —

Right

Avg —

Results

—

More Games

Choose a game

Marathon Update 1.0.5.3 Patch Notes

Combat

Knife

Reduced the maximum lunge distance by ~10% and trimmed down the targeting angle by ~20%.

Bubble Shield

Increased rarity from Deluxe (blue) to Superior (purple)
Reduced bubble HP by 33%
Removed vulnerability to Volt Weapon damage
Increased resistance to UESC damage by 17%

Runners

Stats

Melee Damage
- Reduced bonus damage provided by the Melee Damage stat from a maximum of 100% to a maximum of 50% against enemy Runners. Damage against non-Runner targets is unchanged.
- DEVELOPER NOTE: Melee in Marathon is intended to be a high-risk but potent method to contest close-quarters weapons like shotguns and submachine guns. However, the breakpoints for quick melee kills show up too early in the Melee Damage stat progression, which means additional investment into a build isn’t required to get the maximum effective output. We don’t want to compromise on having melee feel powerful, but believe that getting to that maximum output should be the result of meaningful buildcrafting and upgrade progression. Our goal for this change and the knife lunge changes above are that the knife remains a powerful backup tool, but requires more thoughtful play – both in and out of run – to be most effective.

Thief

Fixed additional Grapple-related slide cancel movement exploits.

Vault and Armory

Fixed an issue causing the Vault and Armory to sometimes appear to be empty.
Fixed an issue causing the Armory item refreshes and free daily items to not appear consistently.

Contracts

Traxus

Removed “in a single run” condition from Traxus Return On Investment 4/5.

Zones

Cryo Archive

Fixed an issue that would cause an exfil countdown to reset if the 1st crew member to enter left the circle, even if the other crew members were in the circle.

2026-04-08 17:05