Marathon's mid-season patch is a big one: 11 new weapon variants, Recon buffs, and a 'Mercy Kit' for reviving strangers

Marathon's mid-season patch is here, and it's ended up bigger than anticipated. Those Recon buffs Bungie's been talking up for ages have arrived, allowing Marathon's resident snitch to differentiate between bots and players when scanning the map. The tracker drone is also better at tracking now, so it should be more than just occasionally helpful.

What wasn't expected in today's patch are 11 new Deluxe weapon variants added to the loot pool on all maps. These are blue-rarity uniques, so not quite as fancy as the gold ones that pop up exclusively in Cryo Archive, but they do have special names and inherent bonuses you can't recreate with your own attachments.

Presumably not wanting to spoil the surprises, Bungie provided just one example of a Deluxe unique. The BR33 "Victory Lap" is a variant of the Volley Rifle with a unique bonus of:

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• +10 Stability
• +30 Range
• +10 Accuracy
• +30 Reload Speed
• +30 Move Speed
• +40 ADS Speed
• +20 Equip Speed
• +10 Aim Assist

Uh yeah, that sounds very strong. Safe to say if you see a blue unique, it's probably better than whatever kitted gun you're holding.

The other major addition that earned its own dedicated blog post is the CARRI protocol, a commendation system running through the end of Season 1 that rewards solo and team players for completing contracts.

"Earn CyberAcme Commendations for your successes, then spend this new material at the C.A.R.R.I. Armory to unlock weapons, Reputation Packs which grant reputation for their associated faction, and more," the blog reads.

I'm personally excited for the introduction of the Mercy Kit, a new consumable that lets you revive strangers out in the wild. The Mercy Kit only works on players outside of your crew and can't be used on yourself, which means its entire purpose is to potentially make nice with rival players or form an alliance with Rooks. It's unclear how commonly the Mercy Kit will be found on maps, but all Rooks will now spawn with one by default. The possibility of a friendly resolution should make Rook-on-Rook showdowns a lot more interesting going forward.

There's also three new weapon universal weapon chips:

• Common Enemy: Damaging enemy combatants causes them to take increased damage from allied or enemy Runners for a short duration.
• Pocket Change: Reloading quickly after a kill or down drops ammo of this weapon’s type.
• Exit Buddy: Downing or killing an enemy grants you and nearby allies increased movement speed with equipped weapons for a short duration.
• And five new implant perks:
• Group Therapy: Using a medical item grants you and nearby allies a stacking bonus to your Self-Repair Speed for a short time.
• Herd Immunity: Defeating hostiles grants you and nearby allies a stacking bonus to Hardware and Firewall stats for a short time.
• Fight Club: Striking hostiles with a melee or knife attack grants you and nearby allies a stacking bonus to Melee Damage for a short time.
• Divebomb: When you damage an enemy with explosives, you and nearby allies gain a large temporary boost to Agility.
• Evasive Maneuvers: When your shields break, you and nearby allies gain increased sprint speed and Heat Capacity for a short time.

Then there's nerfs. The SMG that's so powerful and abundant that it outshines most other guns in the game, the Bully, got nerfed in nine different ways that mostly concern its overly generous aim assist:

• Base aim assist falloff start decreased from 13m to 12m.
• Base aim assist falloff end decreased from 24.2m to 22.5m.
• Base magnetism falloff start decreased from 30m to 27.8m.
• Base magnetism falloff end decreased from 37.1m to 34.5m.
• Max aim assist falloff start decreased from 40m to 37.2m.
• Max aim assist falloff end decreased from 80m to 74.4m.
• Max magnetism falloff start decreased from 93m to 86.4m.
• Max magnetism falloff end decreased from 101m to 93.9m.
• Increased error cone size by 7.5%.

Thermal scopes and the Longshot sniper rifle were knocked down a peg as well in an effort to generally decrease sniper dominance in wide-open spaces like Dire Marsh. Thermals in particular should be far less common from now on:

Removed all Deluxe rarity thermal optics across all weapon archetypes from the loot tables and they can no longer drop.

Superior SP Scope III sniper optics now decreases aim assist and range stats in addition to the ADS speed penalties.

Decreased Superior SP Scope III sniper optics thermal highlight range from 100m to 80m.

Longshot

• Decreased accuracy when firing rapidly to better reward more methodically paced shots.
• Decreased rate of fire from 90rpm to 60rpm.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the Kingmaker Mag Prestige mod to trigger when shooting teammates.

(Image credit: Bungie)

(Image credit: Bungie)

On the cosmetics front, those promised extra battle pass rewards have arrived alongside a grip of Arachne shell skins earned through sponsor kits. But maybe the most impactful "small" change is a visual pass on all implants. Head, body, and leg implants actually look different in your vault now (thank god), though you'll still need to mouse over implants of the same type to tell them apart.

That's the highlights, but if you're a Marathon player it's worth combing over the full patch notes for more on gun nerfs and details on the CARRI Protocol event.