title: "Marathon’s mid-season patch shuts down claymore drone cheese and rewards players" for being less toxic excerpt: "Bungie’s latest Marathon update hits thermal scopes, limits claymore drones," buffs Recon, and adds rewards for helping other runners. category: esports date: '2026-04-17T16:02:39+08:00' author: Aimirul tags:
- Marathon
- Bungie
- Extraction Shooter
- Patch Update featured: false coverImage: /images/esports/marathon-s-mid-season-patch-shuts-down-claymore-drone-cheese-and-rewards-players-for-being.jpg
Bungie has dropped Marathon’s mid-season 1 update, and this one looks like a proper meta shake-up instead of a small tune-up.
The biggest headline is easily C.A.R.R.I, a new in-game system that gives players a reason to help strangers during a match. In a game that already has a pretty ruthless reputation, that is a big swing. If you assist other players with contracts or manage to extract alongside them, you can earn commendations. Those rewards can then be spent on salvage packs or faction reputation boosts.
There is also a social angle here. If you successfully extract with someone, you can team up with them again later, which basically turns random good encounters into a built-in squad-finding tool.
For Malaysia and the wider SEA crowd, this matters because extraction shooters can get super sweaty, super fast. If you mostly play solo or queue at weird hours when your regular squad is not around, systems like this can make the game less punishing and give you more chances to build a decent crew organically.
Of course, Bungie is not only rewarding nice players. If your preferred playstyle is still hunting other runners, the patch also adds new Arachne-themed shell cosmetics to the Codex, with one available for each shell.
Thermal sights finally get hit
Another major balance move is the nerf to thermal scopes, which had become one of the strongest attachments since launch.
After this patch:
- Thermal sights can no longer be looted at deluxe (blue) rarity
- Their effective thermal range has been cut by 20 metres
- Aim-down-sight assist while using them has also been reduced
That should be a big deal in actual fights. For players who felt thermals were doing too much work in spotting and tracking enemies, this is the clearest sign yet that Bungie is trying to tone down low-risk, high-value loadouts.
RIP claymore drone nonsense, mostly
The funniest, most cursed strategy in Marathon also gets clipped here.
Players had been stacking multiple claymores onto a single pickpocket drone, then sending it straight at enemies for easy kills. With the update, only one claymore can now be attached to a drone at a time. That means the full kamikaze cheese is gone, even if a single claymore drone can still down someone if they are too close.
So yes, the meme strat survived, but in a much less stupid form.
More mid-game loot, plus better tools for solos
Bungie has also added 11 new unique deluxe blue weapon drops to Perimeter and Dire Marsh. These are described as weaker versions of the unique weapon drops found in Cryo Archive, which should make them useful stepping stones for players gearing up for harder maps.
Solo players are also getting some love. Depleted self revive kits have been added and will automatically be sold when you exfil, similar to the health and shield kits already in circulation. On top of that, there is now a mercy kit that lets players revive downed runners.
That ties back nicely into the patch’s bigger idea, which is clearly to make Marathon a little less hostile without removing the danger that makes extraction games exciting in the first place.
Recon gets stronger, battle pass gets more stuff
The Recon shell has received notable buffs too. Bungie says both echo pulse and Tracker Drone have been reworked to be more effective, with the pulse tracking enemies better and the drone becoming more capable of chasing and damaging targets.
Meanwhile, both the free and paid versions of the season one battle pass now include more cosmetics for shells, weapons, and other items. That comes after complaints that the original pass felt a bit underwhelming.
Overall, this looks like one of Marathon’s most meaningful updates yet. It targets a few of the loudest player complaints, tones down some frustrating tools, and experiments with making random encounters less miserable. For SEA players, especially solos and smaller squads, that could make day-to-day matches feel a lot healthier.
Source: Eurogamer
