Marathon patch 1.0.0.4 has gone live for Bungie’s new title, and it has dropped the difficulty on opposing NPC enemies, and fans couldn’t be happier.
It has been only a week since Marathon was unleashed onto runners, and Bungie’s new extraction shooter has already captured a sizable community on the internet. Today on the official Bungie site, the studio has released the patch notes for Marathon Update 1.0.0.4. This brings the typical fare of fixes, general gameplay tweaks, and overall balance adjustments that make the title play more fairly (after notable fan feedback). After the Server Slam (which ended on March 5), Bungie promised it would fix the biggest fan issues in a social media post, starting with the cumbersome UI and microtransactions. That post can be seen below.
One of the biggest fan complaints Marathon has received since launch is the unforgiving difficulty of UESC units (the NPCs), and how easily they can end a run. Bungie has just levelled the playing field by reducing the health and shields of most UESC enemies to give players an easier time on runs (considering most fans have had problems with the difficulty of NPCs).
Bungie says, “With this change, we hope to alleviate some of the resource burden in both Solos and Crews when it comes to engaging UESC in combat. The goal here is to allow your bullets and meds to go further without reducing too much of the UESCs’ bite,” while understanding the role UESC units play in firefights, and the notable friction they provide.
Bungie has also increased the number of Med Cabinets and Munitions Crates spawning on the Perimeter map, as well as giving runners more starting ammo in MIDA, CyberAcme, and Arachne Sponsored Kits (free loadouts offered daily), which helps keep runners in the game longer and out of loading screens. Bungie has also increased the range at which players can see their chosen contract objective (from 10m to 20m), which was another known community issue.
Over on Reddit, fans were quick to applaud the patch notes and give Bungie their flowers for the quick adjustments. One fan wrote “THANK YOU!” to the adjustment on contract objectives, with other fans agreeing it was a good change. Other community members have also chimed in on the notes, saying, “Overrun [assault rifle] mag going from 20 to 25 rounds by default is huge for Sponsored Kit runs,” and that the UESC health nerf is universally liked by all fans who interact with forums.
Reddit poster Shpaan posted what everyone else was saying, “Gotta say those are one of the best patch notes I’ve ever read in the sense that pretty much every single thing there is something I either personally struggled with or have seen multiple times mentioned on this subreddit. Bungie seems to be very reactive, and I love it; hopefully, they can keep this up.” Sony claimed in June 2025 that they would not repeat the same live service mistakes they made with Concord, and it appears Marathon is off to a good start.
The entire Marathon Update 1.0.0.4 patch notes can be read over on the official Bungie site.
