A brand new trailer for Marathon confirmed off the grim trauma lurking beneath the floor of the extraction shooter’s colourful Tau Ceti IV planetary environments, but it surely teased extra than simply sci-fi horror worldbuilding. Bungie additionally revealed the dates for the sport’s pre-launch beta, giving gamers one final probability to go hands-on earlier than deciding whether or not to fork over $40 for Sony’s newest live-service multiplayer sport.
Marathon‘s pre-launch “server slam” goes stay on February 26 and can run by means of March 2, only a few days earlier than the sport’s full launch date on March 5. Gamers will have the ability to dive into the sport free of charge on PlayStation 5, Xbox Collection X/S, and PC with the restricted demo coinciding with the upcoming Steam Subsequent Fest. When you don’t must pre-order the sport to get in, you’ll want a PS Plus or Recreation Cross Core subscription to entry the server slam on consoles.
The open beta will characteristic a “restricted choice of maps, Runner shells, and contracts” for gamers to check out, with extra maps, factions, contracts, gear, and different content material coming at launch and through Season 1. Whereas progress gained’t carry over to the total sport, gamers can earn tiered gear packages that can then come in useful after they get began within the loot extraction shooter as soon as it’s out.
PS Plus subscribers will even get the prospect to unlock a handful of unique rewards to indicate they participated within the server slam: particular emblems and banners linked to different PlayStation franchises. These embody weapon charms from Helldivers 2, Dying Stranding 2, and Ghost of Yotei. Xbox and PC gamers will have the ability to earn them too in some unspecified time in the future, although it’s not clear how but. Marathon went by means of a tough patch final yr however latest leaks of a playtest in China advised issues have improved fairly a bit for the reason that unique alpha take a look at.
