Bungie has unveiled its Season 1 and beyond details for its extraction shooter, Marathon, and yes, while there are seasonal wipes, each season will also add new content and features that change how you play the game.
Season 1 ‘Death Is The First Step,’ or as Bungie describes, ‘First Step,’ will kick off the storyline, the gold rush on Tau Ceti and the faction war.
With every new season, the lore and the Marathon universe in general, along with gameplay, will evolve and since there are seasonal wipes, which means everyone starts fresh each season, knowing about the start and end dates for season 1 will be handy.
Season 1 – Death Is The First Step start and end date
Marathon Season 1 ‘Death Is The First Step’ will start on Thursday, March 5, at 7:00 p.m. CET.
Following in the footsteps of Destiny, Marathon’s Seasons will also last for around three months, which is around 10 to 12 weeks.
Based on that, while we still don’t have an exact Season 1 end date, it should end around the first week of June 2026.
Here is a countdown timer for the Season 1 release:
days
hours minutes seconds
until
Death Is The First Step
What does Marathon’s Season 1 include?
Marathon’s Season 1 ‘Death Is The First Step’ will include:
- Complete faction and contract progression
- All six factions, including Sekiguchi Genetics
- Six launch Runner shells, including Thief
- Three zones, including Outpost
- Outpost will unlock the day after launch, giving the community time to gear up and unlock the zone at Runner Level 12
- 28 weapons, plus mods, implants, cores, and more to craft your perfect builds
- Earnable cosmetics, achievements, and storytelling through the Codex
- Ranked Mode
- QoL changes, balance tuning, new implants, a new weapon, and more.
How does seasonal reset work in Marathon?
Seasonal wipes or reset, whatever you like to call it, kind of works in a similar fashion as you see in many other extraction shooters.
With each Season, your progress will be wiped, including: gear, contract progression, faction progression, and player level.
As per Bungie, this will create space for new meta, allowing players to start fresh, which works more in favour of returning and new players.
And while I totally agree on that front, I am not sure about the ‘Contract Progression’ reset. Until and unless the reset means a new wave of Contracts from each faction, it may be a bad idea if they simply reset the existing ones and ask players to do it again and again.
Related: Marathon redeem codes
Seasonal wipe carryovers
Here is the list of progress that will carry over even after Seasonal wipes in Marathon:
- Achievements
- Cosmetics (Paid and Earned)
- Titles and other earned rewards from progression and Milestones
- Codex progression
- Liaison contract progression (In short, you don’t have to unlock factions every season)
When does the Ranked Mode unlock?
Marathon’s Ranked mode will go live in the second half of March. While Bungie hasn’t yet shared an exact unlock date, I am expecting it to be March 19 or 26.
That sums up everything you need to know about Marathon’s Season 1.
