Marathon's Grenade Gala: Players are Getting Pummelled, But Can Bungie Defuse the Boom?
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
Marathon players are growing increasingly frustrated by widespread grenade spam, a problem intensified by a lack of strict limits on explosives, prompting Bungie to promise stack size adjustments before season's end to gently curb the explosive meta.
Alright, mates, let's talk about Marathon. Specifically, let's talk about the absolute digital deluge of grenades currently raining down on poor Runners. It seems players are getting a bit fed up with turning every match into a spectacular, shrapnel-filled fireworks display. Like someone accidentally opened a portal to a dimension made purely of frag grenades, it’s a chaotic symphony of explosions.
You see, grenade spamming – the fine art of lobbing explosives repeatedly until your foes are nothing but a memory and a crater – has been a *thing* since Marathon hit the digital shelves. And while Bungie's had a crack at reining it in before with some 'nerfs' (bless their hearts, they tried, right?), it seems the problem's only escalated. Why? Well, there aren't exactly any *hard* limits on how many boom-booms you can carry, beyond your trusty backpack capacity. And let's be fair, as folks get savvy with their loadouts and master those high-stakes modes like Cryo Archive, chucking a dozen grenades becomes less a tactical choice and more a bloody reflex.
Just take a gander at BogOnMyDog's recent clip on X (cheers for the content, mate!). You've got an enemy team pushing, BogOnMyDog deploys an energy shield (another bit of kit that's caused its own share of headaches, mind you), and then proceeds to *yeet* five grenades in rapid succession. Not a single bullet fired! As SayLes wisely chimed in, "Not a single weapon was shot what a joke of a game." Fair dinkum, right? It's less a firefight, more a digital game of hot potato where everyone's got an unlimited supply of potatoes. Ryan Horath, another Runner, even floated the idea of a dedicated "grenade belt" – sounds like a sensible bit of kit to me, rather than just stuffing them willy-nilly into your inventory.
This isn't just a Twitter kerfuffle, either. The official Marathon Reddit is a veritable powder keg of discussion. User the_eccentricity, who titled a post "Cryo grenade meta is leaking into other maps," reckons it's "absolutely broken" to just stack up "8 flechette nades" and then follow up with "10 more." The consensus? Throwables themselves aren't the issue; it's the sheer *quantity* players can bring to the party.
Now, here's where Bungie steps in, waving their magical developer wand. In an overnight post from the official Marathon dev team on X (always good to hear from 'em, even if it's sometimes a bit like reading digital tea leaves), they've acknowledged the explosive problem. They said, and I quote, "A big topic in the community right now is that it's not a good experience to open up a fight only to be barraged with dozens of grenades." No kidding, Sherlock! The good news? They're "looking to push some changes to stock counts and stack sizes before the end of the season." So, a fix is on the horizon, or so they say. My wizard-sense for marketing speak is tingling ever so slightly, but hey, I'm an optimist at heart. They're also "keeping an eye on the overall usage of equipment," which is a good sign, I reckon.
It's a curious conundrum, this one. Extraction shooters, by their very nature of scavenging and hoarding, often find themselves wrestling with similar beasts. Take Escape from Tarkov, for example – you can lug around as many grenades as your inventory will hold. But the difference there is often the blink-and-you're-dead TTK, which makes popping out to toss a grenade a far riskier manoeuvre than in Marathon, where those shields give you a bit more wiggle room.
So, what's the magic bullet? A hard limit sounds like a slam-dunk, right? But then you've got players potentially grumbling about not being able to snag valuable loot because their grenade slots are full. And heaven forbid they just *lower* the grenade damage – that would probably just encourage folks to carry *even more* grenades to make up the difference. It's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline, that is.
Bungie's chosen path of "stack size" adjustments seems to be the clever play here. It's a roundabout way to make grenades take up more inventory space, gently nudging players towards carrying fewer without outright banning their fun. Will it work? Only time, and a few patches, will tell. We'll be watching this space, folks, like a hawk watching a freshly dropped legendary.
Still, it's not all doom and gloom and shrapnel showers in Marathon. Folks seem to be genuinely enjoying the game since its mid-season update, and that free-sponsored kit limited-time mode is apparently a big hit with eager Runners. So, while the devs are busy trying to defuse the grenade situation, at least there's plenty of other good stuff going on.
*(This explosive analysis was sparked by an original report from Connor Makar over at Eurogamer. Give 'em a look if you fancy the full scoop.)*
Tags: Marathon, Bungie, FPS, Live Service Gaming, Player Feedback
Original article: Eurogamer