Bungie released Marathon's big mid-season update just a few days ago, and it's packed full of heavily-requested changes (plus a bunch of new things we didn't even know we wanted). There are more unique weapons to find outside of Cryo Archive, the CARRI event designed to incentivise cooperation, an experimental pseudo-battle royale mode that's a real treat, and a new item: the Mercy Kit.

In Bungie's own words, "sometimes you shoot first and ask questions later," so the Mercy Kit is intended to, y'know, let you show your enemies some mercy if there's a chance you could be buddies after all. All Rooks spawn with a Mercy kit, and there's a chance to find one while looting in your non-Rook matches.

Despite having the best intentions in mind, you can always count on players to do exactly the opposite of what you want. Mercy Kits aren't being used to "extend a helping hand to rival Runners", as creative director Julia Nardin hoped; they're being used to grief. Content creator FalloutPlays is bang on the money when he describes it as the "most troll-friendly item imaginable."

Im a sick bastard https://t.co/6s8476xqXq pic.twitter.com/Mwdws9AgVhApril 16, 2026

Why show mercy when you could revive them and kill them again for bonus XP? That's the Arachne way. I've even seen a few clips where players revive a fellow Runner, butter them up by giving them free items for redemption, and then shoot them in the head with a WSTR. It's a cruel world out there.

While it's a nice idea to create a tool to encourage some cooperation and riff on Arc Raiders' social sim 'friendly matches' phenomenon, situations like that are a lot more rare on Tau Ceti. I've only met a few friendly players so far, but I have seen a few cases of friendly lobbies and even a cooperative Cryo Archive match.

All teams working together in Cryo from r/Marathon

Generally though, Marathon is shoot first and probably skip the questions entirely so you can pick their corpse clean, so it only makes sense that Mercy Kits would be twisted towards more PvP. It begs the question of what feasibly could be done to encourage more cooperation, or whether Marathon players simply are too far gone. I reckon it's the latter, since I'm relatively peaceful in Arc Raiders and a gunslinger in Marathon, and that's just how I like it.

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