Free Kit Frenzy rids Marathon of most of its stress, but risks tossing out tension and teamwork too

Marathon is a game about loss, though not in the traditional PlayStation Studios fashion. There are no sad dads on Tau Ceti IV, unless you count the various corporate AIs still pining after the failed colony they funded. Rather, Marathon is about the potential for loss—the furrowing fear that sits on your brow every time you pick up a blue shield or a biolens seed. Obviously, you don’t know what a biolens seed is—nobody does. But you heard the shimmering sound it made when it hit your backpack, noted the four slots it swallowed in your inventory, and decided on some level that it was your duty to usher the seed out of dodge.

Now even the tiniest decision is coloured by the purple rarity item on your shoulder. Is opening fire on a rival in the best interests of the seed? Would the seed be placed in danger if you broke this window, rather than finding a quieter route? What precise set of risk equations might allow you to safeguard the seed, which you’re absolutely sure will prove crucial to some undetermined future upgrade?

Yet that powerful sense of responsibility for your gear has turned out to be something that Bungie will compromise on. As part of a wave of tweaks to make Marathon a tad friendlier, the studio has introduced a time-limited Free Kit Frenzy mode. There, everybody beams into Dire Marsh with an inventory made up of low-level weapons, healing items and ammo. There’s no option to bring in equipment you already own, which eliminates any element of upfront risk. And since everybody else is using free kits too, you know you’re not going to be wiped out by a team dressed in gold gear fresh from Cryo Archive.

On the face of it, this experiment would appear to bring Marathon closer to the rhythms of battle royale. After all, there’s little point in caution in the opening minutes of a match when you’ve nothing to lose. Aggressive looting might bag you a slightly upgraded gun or, wonder of wonders, a shield—both significant advantages when every other player has spawned with a popgun and a prayer. In the scramble for a competitive edge, stealth takes a backseat.

That said, I’ve seen teams in Free Kit Frenzy fall foul of a familiar Marathon stumbling block: underestimating the clankers. Even at the best of times, Tau Ceti’s permanent population of grumbling robots present a stern challenge to an uncoordinated team. And when that team is armed with weak gear, it’s all too easy to bite off more bot than you can chew.

While chasing down a contract, I showed up at the Marsh’s notorious repair bay area, Maintenance, to fight a UESC commander. Only, I found the commander was already dead—alongside the three players who’d picked a fight with them. I scooped up my objective from the debris, and smiled at Marathon’s capacity for live environmental storytelling.

In theory, Free Kit Frenzy is a useful arena for the completion of some of Marathon’s gnarlier contracts—in particular, the loud ones. When Marathon mandates that you get into PvE combat, it’s basically asking that you signal your exact location to other players on the map, inviting opportunistic snipers or cloaked ambushers. But tackling such missions in Free Kit Frenzy could perhaps take the sting out of such encounters. With all your own gear safely tucked in your Vault, there’d be no pain, only gain.

Several frenzied and free hours later, however, I’d say that idea hasn’t completely borne out. I’ve certainly managed to complete some significant contracts, but only with a hefty dose of patience—which I think we can all agree is a sister to pain anyway. More than once, I’ve got halfway to finishing a quest only to watch my partners veer from the goal—tempted by the prospect of a messy teamfight. With little to lose, there’s much less hesitation in the air. Players are eager to get into scraps at the expense of whatever they might have been doing beforehand.

One dying teammate chuckled as I fruitlessly finished off an opponent in the Marsh’s quarantine zone, dooming myself to death by machine gun fire in the process. “At least you got him! Well done.” It’s a tone of carefree abandon I’ve never previously associated with Marathon.

At the same time, I’ve witnessed a drastic decrease in team bonding. Outside of Free Kit Frenzy, the Marathon community is often collaborative and helpful. Everyone is vaguely aware that the wellbeing of the players they’re matchmade with has a significant bearing on their own. Strangers tend to stick together, defend one another, get on the same page, and most importantly, ping those bloody awful toxic plants that strip the HP from your bones.

That’s much less the case within the bounds of Bungie’s new social experiment. Once players are killed, they don’t tend to wait around for a revive—instead disconnecting immediately to start a fresh round (a very battle royale behaviour). Their personal investment in a match is lower, and thus their investment in the team is weaker too. You can hardly blame them—though naturally I do, in the moments when I’m left alone, with the thunder of enemy foodsteps filling my headphones.

There have definitely been points where I’m grateful to have Free Kit Frenzy in rotation. After a brutal loss, it’s an appealing option that negates the need for more extreme measures like ‘processing feelings’ or ‘touching grass’.

Still: a part of me wonders whether this new mode has given me a comfort I ought not to have. As a level 40 player, now hoarding shields and stuffing my wallet with excess credits, I’m relying on Bungie to keep my hubris in check. Part of my role, now, is to be the whale that a newer player harpoons. The piñata they’re sometimes lucky enough to crack open, gasping with delight as they rip out my fancy implants. In that context, being able to leave my kit at home for 50% of my runs seems somehow against the spirit of the game.

In fact, one of the pitfalls of Free Kit Frenzy is that, very often, there are no piñatas. Some of my most lucrative Marathon runs have come from the winnings of a kitted-up player's backpack—the rewards proportional to the risk. Free kit fights are fairer, but when the prize is typically the same gun I'm holding plus a few med kits, I actually have fewer interesting reasons to open fire. Asymmetry is what makes an extraction shooter distinct from a deathmatch with an off ramp.

Evidently, Bungie is wary of compromising the core appeal of Marathon. That’ll be why Free Kit Frenzy is temporary, and limited to a single map. The studio will be analysing feedback, and there’s every chance this very article will become a data point. In which case, Bungie: please take care in diluting the wide-eyed electricity of Marathon; the crackling atmosphere you’ve conjured, rooted fundamentally in fear.

More than anything, Free Kit Frenzy feels like a safe out. And as anyone who’s ever been jumped during exfil can tell you, a safe out is not quite Marathon.