Marathon Runner Shell Deep Dive

1 week ago 5

Marathon Approaches the Finish Line with 'Developers Insight' Premiere'

Eric Warner is a Journalist and Multimedia Producer based in New England with over seven years of experience producing stories for multiple print, online, radio, and video publications.

Eric has been a gaming fan ever since getting an original Xbox for Christmas in the early 2000's. From then on, he has become enthralled in the gaming world, spending thousands of hours in Halo multiplayer matches, climbing dozens of towers across the Assassin's Creed games, and 100% perfecting every single Horizon game to date.

When not writing for DualShockers Eric can typically be found playing games on his PS5, PC, and Xbox or reading sci-fi, horror, and fantasy books/comics.

After nearly four months of development and improvements following the delay of its initial September 2025 release, Bungie's new extraction shooter, Marathon, is nearing completion with a brand-new Developer Insight video.

A reboot of Bungie's classic FPS Marathon trilogy released from 1994 to 1996, 2026's Marathon had a bit of a rough run-up to its upcoming March launch.

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Many alpha playtesters were disappointed by Marathon's gameplay and world last spring, while controversy clouded the game after it was discovered that a Bungie artist used designs by Fern "Antireal" Hook in the game without their permission.

Now, only a month and a half before Marathon's expected launch and a month after the reveal of the Vision of Marathon ViDoc, Bungie is ramping up fans' expectations with a new insight video delving into Runner Shells.

Marathon's Runner Shells Explained

Players in Marathon won't be able to fully customize their own original character in the game but instead inhabit Runners from a limited selection of bio-printed bodies known as Runner Shells.

These Shells essentially function as different classes or characters players can choose from, similar to the Legends of Apex Legends, with each shell being designed for specific player archetypes, each with its own unique abilities, passives, and stats.

These Shells essentially function as different classes or characters players can choose from

While each of these Shells is designed for specific playstyles, they can be customized a bit with the use of different loadouts featuring unique cores, implants, and weapons mods.

Marathon's Runner Shells currently include:

Destroyers, bulky, thruster and shield-wielding Shells featuring a modified set of Mjolnir armor seen in the original Marathon trilogy.
Assassins are stealth-oriented Shells equipped with active camouflage as well as abilities that negate fall damage and deploy plumes of smoke.
Recons, which are Shells internally nicknamed the "fun police", can deploy a spider-like tracker drone to locate and cripple, as well as an energy wave that marks hostiles.
Vandals, which are agile Shells that can double jump, power slide further than other Shells, and utilize an arm cannon to knock enemies out of cover or off of edges.
Thiefs, which are loot-driven Shells that are equipped with visors that can see through walls and locate enemies and containers, as well as a pickpocket drone that can ping hostiles or steal their loot, and a grappling hook.
Triages, which are support-oriented Shells that are equipped with gauntlets that can revive teammates, gauntlets that will boost the firepower of weapons, and drones that can deploy shields.
Rooks, which are solo play-oriented Shells that can spawn mid-match with a starting kit, blend in with NPC enemies, and are designed to primarily collect loot throughout a game.

According to Senior Design Lead Kevin Yanes, all of the Runner Shells were designed to feature a "... very distinct silhouette that then players can look at 50, 60 meters away and say 'Oh! I know what that is. I know what that player is capable of, and I can start to think about how to counteract it.'"