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Bungie announced plans to bring an experimental PvE mode to Marathon last month. The limited-time version of this mode will still be happening, but it will be back sooner than expected, as Bungie has already decided that PvE will now become a permanent part of Marathon.
In an announcement this week, Bungie confirmed that its limited-time Vault Breaker PvE mode for Marathon will eventually be a permanent fixture of the game. The mode will first go live from July 21st until August 4th. After that, Bungie will make some changes based on feedback, before bringing the mode back permanently during Marathon Season 3, which begins in late September.
In Vault Breaker, players head to the Cryo Archive map with a unique loadout kit specific to this game mode. Instead of extracting with all of your gear, players of this mode instead earn a new in-game currency called Vault Data upon extraction. This currency can then be used to upgrade gear for your next run, as there are no other players to shoot and steal high value loot from.
Marathon launched as a hardcore, competitive extraction shooter. Players quickly discovered that the game and its seasonal nature aren't exactly friendly to ‘casual' players, as they will quickly be wiped out by players who have grinded matches every single day for much more powerful gear. It became pretty clear from the launch sales numbers of Marathon that Bungie has to do more to appeal to a broader audience here, and it looks like PvE is part of the plan to do that.
On top of that, permanent PvE is likely the only way to convince a lot of Destiny players to try out the game, although that may still be an uphill battle anyway, as Destiny fans aren't exactly happy about their game being killed off to give extra resources to Marathon.
KitGuru Says: Hopefully the Vault Breaker mode can be something of a re-launch for Marathon. Permanent PvE can only help their chances of surviving in the long-term, as long as Bungie is capable of supporting both PvE and PvP sides of the game equally. Unfortunately, doing that turned out to be a huge struggle for them during Destiny 2's lifespan.
