Should Marathon change its divisively fast Server Slam time-to-kill?
Marathon's four-day Server Slam concluded yesterday, and Bungie's been scouring over all the feedback it's received (and some interesting player-driven statistics, like how many bottles of alien milk you pinched from Tau Ceti). Given it's only a few days until launch, there's not much time to make changes ahead of release, but Bungie is considering time-to-kill changes and a duo queue: "Some of you want longer duels and more Runner contact, others are vibing with the current pace."
While the latter would be lovely—picking between solos or trios isn't perfect—I'm much less fond of the idea of tweaking the time-to-kill, despite how divisive it's been so far. As it stands, Marathon's TTK against other players is admittedly very fast. Generally speaking, if you're caught off-guard and someone opens fire, you're dead. Pray they've got bad aim, I guess, because you often don't have time to dive behind cover.
It sounds horrible at first, but the more I've played, the more the lethality has grown on me for a few important reasons—a feeling shared by fellow PC Gamer Morgan Park after sinking 21 hours into it over the weekend.
- You can actually win when you're outnumbered
One of my favourite moments in Marathon so far has been taking down a full squad by myself. My two other teammates got jumped and executed, but I managed to outmanoeuvre the three aggressors to kill them and save my allies. This type of reversal of fate would be almost impossible with a longer TTK, which is an issue you see crop up in Arc Raiders. Better aim and positioning can often still come out on top.
- Fights can still drag on
Because of Marathon's remarkably generous revive system—you can revive allies even when they've been executed, so they're never truly dead—fights have the potential to drag on anyhow. Quick kills balance out the sustainability of engagements. Imagine having to spend more ammo and time killing a player, only for them to get revived shortly after by a rogue teammate and restart the hostilities.
- It encourages you to pay attention
Similar to the one and only Hunt: Showdown, a wicked fast TTK is there to encourage caution and awareness. Get caught out, and you're dead, so scan your surroundings, watch out for sound traps like birds, and don't fight the UESC bots unless you have to. Telegraphing your location to other players is just inviting a shootout, one that you're likely to lose if you're being reckless.
It's also important to note that during the Server Slam, most players didn't have a steady stream of shields and medical supplies, or a wide variety of weapons stored up. Higher quality shields absolutely buy you some more time to react compared to being bare or even a green, basic shield.
If you're willing to learn and adapt to Marathon's pace, then I'd say the fast TTK is bang on the money, and I'd be hesitant to crank the dial any more in either direction, at least for now. As is always the case with extraction shooters, the accumulation of better loot as time goes on can absolutely sway the experience from one side to the other, so I'm glad that Bungie is keeping an eye on it all the same.
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