Bungie just flipped the script on Marathon. Since launch, Marathon has spent every match pitting Runners against each other. Update 1.1.5 finally hands players something they have been begging for since launch, a proper mode where the enemy is the environment instead of the sweaty crew waiting to ruin your exfil. Vault Breaker is the headline, but this patch also drops a fresh round of weapon tuning and quality of life changes worth reading before you queue up. Here is everything new.
What’s New in Marathon Update 1.1.5?
Vault Breaker is Marathon’s first dedicated PvE experiment, and it sends solo players, duos, or trios into the Cryo Archive to break into a chain of increasingly nasty vaults with only UESC forces standing in the way. It runs from July 21 through August 4, 2026, and it is open to players regardless of Runner Level.
You grab a Cryo Key, fight through UESC sectors, solve symbol puzzles to crack each vault, then decide whether to extract or push deeper for better loot before the clock kills your run. Survive long enough, and the mysterious Compiler is waiting in the depths.
On the sandbox side, the tuning is sharp. The WSTR Combat Shotgun got reworked to restore its two-shot potential up close while trimming its effective range and widening pellet spread, and the D54 Battle Pistol was toned down so it now needs extra precision bursts to finish a kill. Bungie also capped players at a combined two Bubble Shields and grenades per match to cut down on explosive spam, refreshed implant icons for readability, and updated the Cradle Evolution system so maxed Cradles can reset for bonus max Energy and cosmetic rewards.
Marathon Update 1.1.5 Patch Notes
General
- Added a new experimental PVE mode, Vault Breaker.
- Explore Cryo Archive as a crew, duo, or a solo player, taking on a progressively challenging series of vaults.
- Grow stronger across multiple matches with progression that’s unique to Vault Breaker, and push towards the final vault and the mysterious entity within.
- Added support to Player Voice Reporting and Voice Moderation.
- More information available at bung.ie/voicemoderation.
Item Economy
Armory
- Ganglion barters now have a stock limit of 3, with the exception of Hyphatic Gel.
- Fixed an issue where Ganglion barters could reroll during unintended scenarios.
- Adjusted some barter costs to include Rubber Salvage.
Cradle
- The 25% reduction in Cradle progress has now been reverted.
- New Feature: Cradle Evolution
- Players whose Cradle has reached level 70 will see a new the option to “Evolve Cradle” below the Cradle XP bar.
- Activating a Cradle Evolution will:
- Increases the Cradle energy limit by 1.
- Reset the Cradle to level 1.
- Reset all invested energy in each track of the Cradle.
- Grants the Cradle 1 energy per Cradle Evolution stage.
- The Cradle can be evolved a total of 7 times.
Pursuit Upgrades
- Fixed an issue where the MIDA capstone V upgrade’s requirements were incorrectly displayed.
- Fixed an issue where stacked upgrade nodes could become locked if the 6th capstone has not been unlocked.
- Fixed an issue where stacked upgrade nodes could incorrectly display that an upgrade is available to purchase.
Items & Inventory
- Added a toggle to enable or disable a free sponsored kit upon death.
- Fixed an issue where the sell option could be displayed twice in the item tooltip.
- Fixed an issue where some Salvage items were not displaying their usages.
- Fixed an issue where sponsored kits would incorrectly display depleted self-revives.
- Fixed an issue where scrap could not be converted into credits even if there was inventory space to do so.
Ranked
- Fixed an issue where Rank points could incorrectly display as “0” in the Run Report.
- Fixed an issue where Ranked sponsored kits would not immediately refresh on rank changes.
Map Loot
- Fixed an issue where a UESC Cert in Algae Ponds was unable to be interacted with.
- Fixed an issue where a container in Night Marsh Complex was unable to be interacted with.
- Fixed an issue where a container in Night Marsh AI Uplink was clipping into the environment.
- Fixed an issue where a player could get stuck on a container in Cryo Vault 02.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where a user could get stuck in a kick to login loop.
- Updated multi-select item tile visuals to be more visible.
- Fixed an issue where selling all items in the overflow could be accidentally triggered.
Combat
Equipment
Loadout-Limited Infil Limit
- Starting mid-season, some equipment items are marked Loadout-Limited. Only 2 Loadout-Limited items are allowed in your loadout during infil. Having too many in your loadout will cause a Crew Error when preparing for a run. Extra items beyond the limit can still be collected in-game and exfiltrated; only infil is restricted.
- Loadout-Limited items: Bubble Shield, Chem Grenade, EMP Grenade, Flechette Grenade, Frag Grenade, Heat Grenade
Developer’s Note: This new infil restriction has two purposes: reduce the efficacy of AOE grenade spam and reduce the prevalence of Bubble Shields. We think grenades are in a good place damage-wise, but feedback is clear that spam is still an issue on Cryo and that Bubble Shields are flattening high level combat.
Bubble Shield
- Removed the player slow down on entering a Bubble Shield volume.
- Reduced health in PVP from 560 to 400.
- Increased health against UESC from 1680 to 2500.
- Fixed an issue that caused explosions from grenades to not do any damage to Bubble Shields.
- Increased the damage explosions from grenades do to Bubble Shields by 2x.
Energy Amp
- Passive prime ability regen reduced by 40%.
- Passive tactical/trait ability reduced by 40%.
- Increased buff time granted by Energy Amp from 2 minutes to 3 minutes.
Effects
Invisibility
- Invisibility will flicker off after sprinting for more than 2 seconds.
- Note: This change affects invisibility from any source.
- AI combatants can now hear the footsteps of Invisible players at very close range, and will now enter their search behavior when they do.
Dev Note: Invisibility is currently too powerful as a tool for completely sidestepping PvE encounters. We’re taking a sizeable swing here to make it so players will need to be more intentional with their movement after activation. You’ll still be able to navigate past enemies but choosing when to sprint and when to move more slowly will be more important. Alongside this change, we’re increasing the uptime of Smoke Dive to help ensure that Assassin still has strong disengage tools at their disposal, and we’ll continue to evaluate how Invisibility is playing moving forward.
Runner Shells
Assassin
- Smoke Dive
- Reduced base cooldown time from 60s to 45s.
Recon
- Echo Pulse
- Reduced Echo Pulse base wave count from 7 to 5.
- Increased time between waves from 2.5s to 3s.
- Reduced Echo Pulse base ping waypoint lifetime from 10s to 8s.
Dev Note: Echo Pulse is a primary contributor to undesired standoff behavior in our higher tier activities, so we’re making some changes to reduce how quickly it snapshots enemy location information and the number of snapshots it provides. This should give players more time to reposition or push between pulses in combination with the changes to Energy Amp detailed above reducing its effective uptime for highly invested players. We’ll be keeping an eye on this to see how it performs alongside the rest of the changes for future updates.
Thief
- Pickpocket Drone
- While in flashlight-enabled Zones, Pickpocket Drone now has intrinsic Darksight to help pilots navigate through dark interior spaces more easily.
Sentinel
- Defender System
- Fixed an issue where the Defender System was able to catch grenades while fading out at the end of its lifetime.
- Reduced base cooldown time from 180 seconds to 150 seconds.
- Snare Mine
- Increased maximum detonation damage per submunition from 5 to 7 against enemy Runners.
- Increased maximum detonation damage per submunition from 30 to 35 against enemy non-Runners.
- Prey Tracker
- Prey Tracker is no longer scrambled by Signal Jammer.
Dev Note: With the infil limit for grenades detailed above coming in, we wanted to give Sentinel’s kit a bit more general usability to compensate. Snare Mine will be a more reliable damage tool, and Prey Tracker no longer has an easily accessible counter without downside. As with any new shell, dialing in potency will be a process that happens over time – we’ll be monitoring Sentinel’s performance for the rest of the season to see how things shake out.
Destroyer
- Search and Destroy
- Fixed an issue where sustained damage from the Biotoxic Disinjector weapon was not counting towards building rocket charges.
Rook
- Recuperation
- Increased heal rate from 2hp/s to 3hp/s.
- Increased healing duration from 20s to 30s.
Dev Note: With Season 2, Rook’s playstyle shifted more firmly back into scavenger territory without an arsenal of claymores and shotguns, but its ability to recover from a bad situation without reliance on healing consumables with Recuperation wasn’t hitting the bar. Overall healing has been more than doubled, making Rook much less reliant on finding Patch Kits in-run. The potency of Rook’s arsenal is something we’re looking at season-over-season to find the right potency.
Implants
- Updated implant iconography to better reflect each implant’s unique effects.
- Triage Cloak
- Now also activates when using a Mercy Kit.
Backpacks
- Sneak Pack
- Fixed an issue where Sneak Pack’s Signal Jammer effect did not prevent claymore activations.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where removing a player’s backpack from a death bag could result in loot being deleted when the player was revived.
Weapons
D54 Battle Pistol
- Reduced precision bonus multiplier from 1.5x to 1.38x.
- Developer’s Note: This seems like a small change but this change means the D54 Battle Pistol requires 3 precision bursts to down a Grey Shield Runner, up from 2 Bursts, and 4 bursts to down a Purple Shield Runner, up from 3 bursts.
- Reduced damage fall range minimum and maximum across all stat tiers by 10%.
- Maximum 100 Range stat damage falloff minimum goes from 38 meters to 34 meters.
- Maximum 100 Range stat damage falloff maximum goes from 72 meters to 64 meters.
V22 Volt Thrower
- Removed the 0.5s target acquisition time to better enable ambush style gameplay.
- The visual target indicator always showed immediately but projectiles wouldn’t actually track until after being on target for 0.5 seconds.
- Increased projectile velocity speed from 56 m/s to 80 m/s.
- Completely retuned rate of fire and firing spin down.
- Increased max rpm from 507.3 to 540.
- Decreased min rpm from 309.3 to 140.
- Spin down based on heat now spins down more linearly instead of the previous behavior.
Twin Tap HBR
- Increased base damage from 22 to 24.
- Increased precision bonus multiplier from 1.3 to 1.4.
- Increased the speed between rounds in a burst by 50%.
- Retuned recoil direction to compensate.
- Increased intensity of sim input and camera shake to compensate.
- Decreased stability at the lower investment tiers by ~20% to compensate.
- Fixed an issue where ADS Accuracy starting cone size did not improve with ADS Accuracy stat increases.
- Q-Tap Regen Prestige Mod:
- Increased the base damage from 15 to 19.
- Increased the base rate of fire to match normal rate instead of decreasing it.
- Developer’s Note: We heard the feedback on the Prestige Mod hurting the PVP performance of this mod too much compared to the base gun. In our testing, optimal TTKs are now comparable with that of the base weapon.
- Removed the low health requirement on the Prestige Mod healing perk:
- Hitting 4 precision hits in rapid succession starts health regeneration.
- Reduced the heal rate from 1.5x the speed of a Patch Kit to 0.8x the speed of a Patch Kit to compensate for the ease of use buff.
- Added a 3 second cooldown since this perk can now be activated theoretically back to back.
KKV-9SD
- Redistributed damage profile to lower reliance on headshots.
- Developer’s Note: KKV always had a mathematically faster optimal TTK than most weapons but it was reliant on almost entirely headshots and missing a single one would result in a massive drop in TTK. This change makes the optimal TTK remain as fast as before but it makes body shot TTK faster and the punishment of missing a single headshot much less.
- Increased base damage to 9, up from 8.
- Reduced precision damage scale to 1.29x, from 1.45x.
CE Tactical Sidearm
- Improved ADS Accuracy starting cone size on the base version by ~10%.
- Improved ADS Accuracy final cone size on base version by ~13%.
Bully SMG
- Reduced Rodeo Mag size from 72 to 61.
- Reduced maximum magazine size from Drum Mag from 66 to 58.
- Reduced damage falloff at the high end and retuned damage falloff at all range stats to compensate. This results in Bully’s maximum range before suffering falloff to be reduced from 40 meters to 32 meters and maximum damage falloff range to be reduced from 70 meters to 62 meters.
WSTR Combat Shotgun
- Damage increased from 85 to 100.
- Reduced precision bonus multiplier from 1.05x to 1.0x.
- Increased spread by 20% across all stat tiers.
- Reduced aim assist falloff start at the top end by 30%.
- Retuned stat tiers to compensate.
- Reduced aim assist falloff end at the top end by 12%.
- Retuned stat tiers to compensate.
- Reduced magnetism falloff by ~10%.
- Reduced minimum damage percentage at max falloff from 20% to 10%.
- Retuned damage falloff across all tiers:
- 2HKO range with a grey WSTR against base shields: 3 meters.
- 2HKO range with a grey WSTR against purple shields: 2 meters.
- 2HKO range with a max invested WSTR against base shields: 7 meters.
- 2HKO range with a max invested WSTR against purple shields: 4 meters.
Misriah 2442
- Damage reduced from 140 to 110.
- Reduced precision bonus multiplier from 1.2x to 1.0x.
- Reduced rpm from 72 to 58.
- Fixed an issue that caused the range stat to not modify aim assist or magnetism falloff:
- This results in roughly a 30% buff to aim assist when at 100 range stat but roughly a 25% nerf to magnetism at 100 range stat.
- Retuned damage falloff across all tiers:
- 2HKO range with a grey Misriah against base shields: 10 meters (was 11 meters).
- 2HKO range with a grey Misriah against purple shields: 9 meters (was 10 meters).
- 2HKO range with a max investment Misriah against base shields: 14 meters (was 18 meters).
- 2HKO range with a max investment Misriah against purple shields: 12 meters (was 16 meters).
- Full-Auto Selector Prestige Mod
- Reduced hipfire rpm from 72 to 58.
- Both hipfire and ADS now fire full auto, as opposed to just hipfire.
- In addition to previous benefits, hipfire mode massively increases movement speed with the Misriah equipped.
Volt Battery Weapons
- Increased the amount of trickle charge generated while moving with Volt Battery weapons equipped by 4x.
Chips
Exit Buddy
- Removed unintentional camera shake on perk activation.
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where switching weapons while mantling could store weapon charge state in some circumstances.
Contracts
- Fixed an issue in the Mida “Expose/Extinguish” contract where one crew could expose/extinguish all the stockpiles, blocking progression for other crews.
- Traxus “Unsanctioned Hostilities [5/5]” now supports recovering the targeted contract item from other players and will grant objective progress.
Zones
- Fixed multiple issues involving containment, floating geometry, or loot that was inaccessible due to map geometry.
- Added new sources of faction reputation to Cryo Archive.
- Added additional cover near infils in Dire Marsh where infil rushing was easily exploited.
- Exfil icons in Cryo Archive no longer use the guarded exfil map icon, and fixed an issue where waypoints did not appear on exfils until pinged on the mini map.
- Increased the duration that icons remain on the HUD after using a Scanner in Cryo Archive.
- Fixed an issue where incorrect audio queues were playing on UESC Network Towers on Night Marsh.
- Fixed an issue where players could get squashed by a UESC dropship in Bioresearch.
- Fixed an issue where DCON waypoints were leading to incorrect locations.
- Fixed an issue where the horn on the hauler was missing an interact prompt.
- Fixed an issue where the Anomalous Substance waypoint was not updating correctly.
- Fixed an issue where Oni would announce that UESC Convoy was active, but the Convoy did not spawn.
- Removed //THEN requirement from Traxus “Return on Investment 5/5” to credit all contract holders when stockpile spawns to allow contract completion by last holder of salvage on exfil.
- Fixed issue where “IN A SINGLE RUN” was present on crew objectives in the objective HUD widget.
Stability and Graphics
- Fixed an issue that could cause a graphics crash when closing the game.
- Fixed a graphics crash that occurred when players were unable to enable FSR.
- Fixed a graphics crash that occurred when the game experienced heavy loading.
- Improved reticle visibility when playing in HDR mode.
- The flashlight no longer appears blocky when close to a surface when anti-aliasing and variable-rate shading is active.
- Fixed an issue causing flashing graphic artifacts on UESC shields in Night Marsh.
- Improved Thief X-Ray performance when using an AMD GPU.
- Fixed an issue where signing into the game on a second device would cause both devices to wait for over a minute before timing out the first device.
Bungie is treating Vault Breaker as its biggest test ahead of Marathon’s full PvE mode planned for Season 3, so the feedback and data from these two weeks will directly shape what cooperative play looks like down the line. If you have been waiting for a reason to jump back into Tau Ceti IV without the constant PvP pressure, this is your window. Just remember the mode vanishes on August 4, so bank that Vault Data while you can.
