TL;DR: Bungie published the official Marathon seasons blog on March 3, 2026, confirming mandatory progression wipes every three months. Gear, contracts, faction progression, credits, and player level all reset at the start of each new season. Cosmetics, titles, achievements, Codex progress, and liaison contract unlocks are permanent. Season 1 (DEATH IS THE FIRST STEP) launches March 5 with the endgame zone Cryo Archive, Ranked Mode in late March, and a new gun and implants. Season 2 (NIGHTFALL) launches in June and introduces a nighttime Dire Marsh variant, a new Runner Shell, and The Cradle progression system. All seasonal content is free — no paid DLC. The first actual wipe occurs at the transition from Season 1 to Season 2 in June.
Two days before its March 5 launch, Bungie published a detailed blog confirming one of Marathon’s most anticipated — and debated — mechanics: seasonal progression wipes. The post, titled “Introducing Seasons in Marathon,” lays out the full seasonal structure, what resets, what stays, and what players can expect from the game’s first six months of post-launch content.
The short version: every three months, you lose almost everything. The longer version is more nuanced — and for players still on the fence, the details may make or break their decision to commit.
What Gets Wiped — And What Doesn’t
At the start of each new season, Marathon resets everyone’s gear, contract progression, faction progression, and player level. This includes your stash of extracted weapons, implants, mods, gear, faction rank, seasonal upgrades, in-game currency balances, and seasonal power level.
Bungie is clear about the intent behind the decision. The reset ensures that the power gap doesn’t become insurmountable for new Runners and forces everyone to engage with the meta from scratch.
What you keep is equally clearly defined. Cosmetics (both earned and paid), titles, and milestone rewards carry over permanently. Codex progression also carries over, as do liaison contract unlocks — meaning you won’t need to reconnect with the game’s factions once every three months.
The table below breaks it down cleanly:
| Resets Each Season | Carries Over Permanently |
|---|---|
| All gear and extracted weapons | All cosmetics (earned and purchased) |
| Faction rank and upgrades | Titles and achievements |
| Contract progression | Codex progression |
| Player level | Liaison contract unlocks |
| In-game currency | Milestone rewards |
| Seasonal power level | — |
Critically, the first actual wipe won’t happen until Season 2 launches in June 2026 — meaning players who start on March 5 have a full three months before anything resets.
Marathon vs. Arc Raiders: Mandatory vs. Optional
The most immediate point of comparison is Arc Raiders, which launched to strong reception and deliberately made its wipes optional. Bungie’s decision to make wipes mandatory — unlike Arc Raiders — is designed to ensure competitive integrity, levelling the playing field each ranked season and preventing dominant loadouts from carrying over indefinitely.
All seasonal content — new Runner Shells, zones, events, and gear — will be free for all players, with no paid DLC required. Paid cosmetics remain available but are never gated behind gameplay progression.
The end-of-season dynamic Bungie is designing toward is also worth noting. As you reach the end of a season, you’ll likely be more willing to use up the cool gear you’ve unlocked and escaped with, rather than hoarding it — since you can’t take it with you after the wipe. The final days of a season could become a chaotic playground as players pull out all their high-tier loadouts.
Season 1: DEATH IS THE FIRST STEP (March–June 2026)
Season 1 launches with all six in-game factions unlocked — including Sekiguchi Genetics, which was locked during the Server Slam — and all six Runner Shells playable, including Thief.
The major mid-season addition is Cryo Archive. Set aboard the drifting Marathon ship, Cryo Archive is the endgame map of Season 1 — the zone housing the biggest threats and secrets of the season — and it unlocks only after the community completes a collective objective. Bungie teases players will come face to face with “an entity even the UESC fears” — likely a classic Marathon alien faction for those familiar with the original trilogy’s lore.
Ranked Mode arrives in the second half of March, rewarding exclusive items based on ladder placement. The Season 1 roadmap also includes a new gun, new implants, balance changes, and a limited-time C.A.R.R.I. event.
Season 2: NIGHTFALL (June–August 2026)
Season 2 kicks off in June and features a nighttime variant of the Dire Marsh zone, a new Runner Shell, and a new system called The Cradle, which gives players more autonomy over their Runner Shell’s statistical strengths and weaknesses.
The Season 2 announcement also teases that “UESC reinforcements flood in,” strongly implying new enemy types will debut alongside the season. The runner teased in Marathon’s original 2023 reveal trailer is also expected to be added as a playable character in Season 2, according to Kotaku’s reporting.
The $40 Price Tag and What It Means
Marathon launches at $40 — not free-to-play, but a meaningful step below the standard $70 premium price point for major releases. Combined with the confirmation that all seasonal content is free, the model positions Marathon as a mid-tier entry price with a live-service content strategy that doesn’t rely on expansion purchases to sustain itself.
Whether that’s enough to build long-term retention in a genre where both Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov have established loyal player bases is the central question Bungie needs to answer over the next six months. The mandatory wipes add stakes and freshness, but they also raise the bar for how compelling each season’s new content needs to be — because every three months, every player starts over and asks themselves whether it’s worth grinding again.
For more on the extraction shooter landscape: Escape From Tarkov recently slashed its matchmaking wait times from 10 minutes to under 2 — a major competitive pressure point for Marathon to match. And in broader gaming news, Warframe just confirmed its Nintendo Switch 2 release date alongside a Dead by Daylight-style mode — another live-service shooter with its own seasonal content model to compare against.
