Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler announced today that a limited-time duos queue is coming to Marathon starting Wednesday, March 18 at 10AM PT. The mode will be available exclusively on Perimeter as an experimental test to see how the game plays with two-player crews at scale.

"Alright everyone we're going a bit rogue here. We have a bit of an experimental feature that's in development we want to test and we'd love for you to help."

— Joe Ziegler, Game Director

What You Need to Know

  • Perimeter only — duos will not be available on other zones at launch
  • ~2 week test window — Bungie may cut it short or extend it depending on how things go
  • Premade groups only — you must queue with a friend. There is no solo matchmaking into duos
  • Duos vs. duos only — you will only be matched against other two-player crews
  • Access via zone select — select "Perimeter - Duo" from the zone select screen
  • Expect some jank — this is an early test and the UX is not final

Why It's Experimental

Ziegler was clear that this is not the final version of duos. The team wanted to get the feature into players' hands quickly to gather data before investing more development time into a polished implementation.

"This likely won't be the final implementation of how it would look and flow in the game, but for now it was the easiest way for us to get it to you all to help us test."

— Joe Ziegler, Game Director

Duos has been one of the most requested features since Marathon's launch. Running Perimeter with just one teammate will create a fundamentally different dynamic — fewer friendlies to trade with, tighter loot economy, and potentially faster map depletion as more crews move through the zone.

What's Next

If the test goes well, Bungie hopes to expand duos as a permanent queue in the future. Ziegler also hinted this won't be the last experiment the team runs, suggesting more experimental features and modes are on the way.

Source: Joe Ziegler on X

Build your loadout before the test begins — check out the Loadout Builder, browse Weapons, and lock in your Cores on MarathonDB.