Night falls and the loot calls
By Paul Hunter
Marathon Season 2 Nightfall has arrived, and Bungie has brought a ton of updates to its extraction shooter on PS5. Each season sees a reset of all assets in your Vault and personalized Armory, and your shells are reset to put everyone on the same playing field at the start of the new season.
Nightfall has a darker mood, new gear, a revamped progression system, a new shell, a revamped map, and so much more.
So, is this night run worth taking on PS5? Let’s find out!
Night Marsh ratchets up the sense of danger on Tau Ceti IV. After Runners spent the first season raiding the planet, the UESC has started tightening control over the places and valuables it wants protected.
I relly enjoyed how the darkness changes the rhythm of a run. All Runners get a new flashlight that helps you move through grass and corridors, yet that same beam can announce your position to any dangers nearby.
Darksight scopes add another useful addition as they briefly highlight the environment after aiming down sights. Signal Flares also help because they light an area in one of several colours, which makes them handy for calling your team or highlight zones you're about to raid.
Complex Control gives Night Marsh a higher sense of risk-rewards. UESC units now drop encryption certificates, known as Certs, and those Certs let you hack Network Towers for weapons and valuable loot. They also activate exfils on Night Marsh.
Even better, the previously locked upper rooms can now be accessed, but they're heavily guarded and dangerous to infiltrate. Should you succeed though, you'll find among the most valuable look the map has to offer.
Season 2 also adds a new Runner shell called Sentinel. Sentinel is built for crews that want to hold ground instead of chasing fights. Its Prime ability, Defender System, deploys an automated laser that destroys incoming grenades and missiles while improving weapon handling for nearby crewmates. I'm usually a more defensive player, so Sentinel has quickly become my go-to shell for controlling corridors and exfils sites.
Sentinel also has a Snare Mine that's a proximity trap, detonating when enemies are near by and immobilizing them. It is built for baiting aggressive enemies, allowing you to finish them off while their shell temporarily shuts down.
Rounding out Sentinel's abilities are Castle Doctrine, a passive ability that gives extra resistance after splash damage and improves close-range handling when enemies crowd you, and Prey Tracker, their trait ability, gives short-range motion radar for nearby moving targets.
Prey Tracker is my favourite part of Sentinel's kit because it gives just enough radar intel to plan a sneak attach or check a flank, while avoiding messy rushes.
The other new weapon is the D54 Battle Pistol. It is a sidearm with a red dot sight, full-auto three-round bursts, and strong handling for close encounters. The D54 is a great sidearm for longer-range loadouts, giving you a practical way to stay alive when a fight suddenly moves indoors.
The biggest progression change in Season 2 is the Cradle. The Cradle is a shared seasonal progression system across all your Runner shells that lets your improve your shells stats across six categories, like Strength, Dexerity, and Resistance. Before this update, stat bonuses were tied to faction progression, but now Nightfall moves shell growth into the Cradle and it's much easier to manage.
To power-up your shells you need to feed unwanted weapons into the Matter Converter, then earn Cradle experience based on the value of what you convert. The Cradle also lets you reallocate stat points at any time with no penalty. This is awesome because it means you can try a setup and if you change your mind, you can completely rebuild your shells around another stat at any time.
Faction progression has also been streamlined in Season 2. Faction trees now focus more on Armory access, implants, Barter offers, and other rewards. Standard Contracts now give better reputation gains, and faction requirements have been reduced in many cases. You can also earn reputation through Enhanced valuables and by defeating UESC units.
Contracts have also been adjusted to reduce friction. Priority Contracts now focus more on loot rewards, and Cryo Archive contracts can move forward across multiple runs.
Implants are another improved system, with their names now focused on the perk first, and have fixed stats, which makes them easier to sort in your Vault and it's simpler to judge whether to equip an implant in the heat of battle. Faction families make it easier to understand implant effects, with NuCaloric offering implants tied to healing and durability, while MIDA offering options aimed at mobility and disruption, as examples.
The new loot filter is another practical win. If your loadout is missing a slot, you can filter for gear that fits that slot, which helps you rebuild faster after each run.
Even the lobby UI is better, as Bungie has combined the Loadout and Vault menus, so you spend less time bouncing between screens before getting back into a run. Since I'm playing on PS5, I also liked the the new console cursor speed setting.
Final Score: 8/10 - Great
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Bungie
Genre: Extraction Shooter
Modes: Multiplayer
By Paul Hunter
Marathon Season 2 Nightfall has arrived, and Bungie has brought a ton of updates to its extraction shooter on PS5. Each season sees a reset of all assets in your Vault and personalized Armory, and your shells are reset to put everyone on the same playing field at the start of the new season.
Nightfall has a darker mood, new gear, a revamped progression system, a new shell, a revamped map, and so much more.
So, is this night run worth taking on PS5? Let’s find out!
Night Marsh and Sentinel
Season 2’s biggest addition is Night Marsh, a night version of Dire Marsh that turns the familiar zone into a darker and more dangerous extraction space. While Day Marsh focuses on quick movement and longer sight lines, Night Marsh is slower-paced and makes you think harder about route choice and when to reveal your position.Night Marsh ratchets up the sense of danger on Tau Ceti IV. After Runners spent the first season raiding the planet, the UESC has started tightening control over the places and valuables it wants protected.
I relly enjoyed how the darkness changes the rhythm of a run. All Runners get a new flashlight that helps you move through grass and corridors, yet that same beam can announce your position to any dangers nearby.
Darksight scopes add another useful addition as they briefly highlight the environment after aiming down sights. Signal Flares also help because they light an area in one of several colours, which makes them handy for calling your team or highlight zones you're about to raid.
Complex Control gives Night Marsh a higher sense of risk-rewards. UESC units now drop encryption certificates, known as Certs, and those Certs let you hack Network Towers for weapons and valuable loot. They also activate exfils on Night Marsh.
Even better, the previously locked upper rooms can now be accessed, but they're heavily guarded and dangerous to infiltrate. Should you succeed though, you'll find among the most valuable look the map has to offer.
Season 2 also adds a new Runner shell called Sentinel. Sentinel is built for crews that want to hold ground instead of chasing fights. Its Prime ability, Defender System, deploys an automated laser that destroys incoming grenades and missiles while improving weapon handling for nearby crewmates. I'm usually a more defensive player, so Sentinel has quickly become my go-to shell for controlling corridors and exfils sites.
Sentinel also has a Snare Mine that's a proximity trap, detonating when enemies are near by and immobilizing them. It is built for baiting aggressive enemies, allowing you to finish them off while their shell temporarily shuts down.
Rounding out Sentinel's abilities are Castle Doctrine, a passive ability that gives extra resistance after splash damage and improves close-range handling when enemies crowd you, and Prey Tracker, their trait ability, gives short-range motion radar for nearby moving targets.
Prey Tracker is my favourite part of Sentinel's kit because it gives just enough radar intel to plan a sneak attach or check a flank, while avoiding messy rushes.
New Weapons, The Cradle, and Contracts
Season 2 adds two new weapons as well. The KKV-9SD is a pistol-frame SMG with an integrated suppressor and a very high fire rate of 1200 rounds per minute. It lets you put the pressure on in close-range encounters, and gives you a strong response when another Runner tries to rush your space. It's particularly effective against shotgun rushers, which changes fights in a big way after Season 1’s shotgun-heavy fights.The other new weapon is the D54 Battle Pistol. It is a sidearm with a red dot sight, full-auto three-round bursts, and strong handling for close encounters. The D54 is a great sidearm for longer-range loadouts, giving you a practical way to stay alive when a fight suddenly moves indoors.
The biggest progression change in Season 2 is the Cradle. The Cradle is a shared seasonal progression system across all your Runner shells that lets your improve your shells stats across six categories, like Strength, Dexerity, and Resistance. Before this update, stat bonuses were tied to faction progression, but now Nightfall moves shell growth into the Cradle and it's much easier to manage.
To power-up your shells you need to feed unwanted weapons into the Matter Converter, then earn Cradle experience based on the value of what you convert. The Cradle also lets you reallocate stat points at any time with no penalty. This is awesome because it means you can try a setup and if you change your mind, you can completely rebuild your shells around another stat at any time.
Faction progression has also been streamlined in Season 2. Faction trees now focus more on Armory access, implants, Barter offers, and other rewards. Standard Contracts now give better reputation gains, and faction requirements have been reduced in many cases. You can also earn reputation through Enhanced valuables and by defeating UESC units.
Contracts have also been adjusted to reduce friction. Priority Contracts now focus more on loot rewards, and Cryo Archive contracts can move forward across multiple runs.
Implants are another improved system, with their names now focused on the perk first, and have fixed stats, which makes them easier to sort in your Vault and it's simpler to judge whether to equip an implant in the heat of battle. Faction families make it easier to understand implant effects, with NuCaloric offering implants tied to healing and durability, while MIDA offering options aimed at mobility and disruption, as examples.
The Armory and QOL Improvements
The Armory has also seen improvements in Season 2. A fully upgraded Vault now has 512 grid spaces, which gives you more room to manage weapons, items, and materials.The new loot filter is another practical win. If your loadout is missing a slot, you can filter for gear that fits that slot, which helps you rebuild faster after each run.
Even the lobby UI is better, as Bungie has combined the Loadout and Vault menus, so you spend less time bouncing between screens before getting back into a run. Since I'm playing on PS5, I also liked the the new console cursor speed setting.
The Verdict
Marathon Season 2 Nightfall is a strong next step for Bungie’s extraction shooter. The season gives the game a great new darker identity, a smoother progression path, better build flexibility, and plenty of quality-of-life improvements. I came away impressed by how much the update improves the tension inside a run, and removes the friction from planning between runs. All in all, Nightfall gives Marathon a clear, exciting step forward.Final Score: 8/10 - Great
Marathon Season 2 details
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PCDeveloper: Bungie
Publisher: Bungie
Genre: Extraction Shooter
Modes: Multiplayer