Bungie has dropped the full Season 2 Dev Insights breakdown for Nightfall — and it's a big one. Season 2 arrives on June 2, 2026, bringing a brand-new night zone, the game's eighth runner shell, two new weapons, a completely redesigned progression system called the Cradle, sweeping implant and faction changes, and a free Open Play Week for everyone. Here's everything you need to know.

Darkness Descends on Tau Ceti IV

Runners have had a profitable season on Tau Ceti IV — but all that activity has attracted unwanted attention. The UESC is stepping up its efforts to lock down the planet and protect the secrets they'd rather keep buried. As their defenses escalate, something else is beginning to stir. The Anomaly is changing, and after the sun goes down, things get much, much stranger.

New Zone: Dire Marsh (Night)

Season 2's headline addition is Dire Marsh (Night) — a completely different way to experience the existing Marsh map. When darkness falls, the rules change. Long sight lines collapse into shadow, the Anomaly cuts off your usual routes, and shining your flashlight could reveal what you wish it hadn't. Bungie describes it as closer to a survival horror experience than a standard extraction shooter run: slower-paced, fewer players, and built around new environmental hazards and combatants lurking in the dark.

To survive on Night Marsh, you'll have access to a new suite of light-based gear:

  • Flashlights — a new tool available to all Runners on Night Marsh
  • Vector rounds — a new mag type that creates pools of light where your bullets land, illuminating nearby enemies and runners
  • Vector grenades — highlight the environment and ping nearby enemies
  • Darksight scopes — briefly illuminate the area around you after aiming down sights; oriented toward traversal rather than enemy detection
  • Signal Flares — light up large areas of the environment; come in multiple colors

Complex Control

Night Marsh introduces a new objective layer: UESC Certs. Kill UESC enemies to collect their encryption certificates, then hack Network Towers scattered across the map to unlock their stockpiles of weapons, healing supplies, and loot. Certs are also required to activate exfils — you won't be able to leave without gathering them.

Those staircases in Dire Marsh that led nowhere? They're now active. Anomalous energy is flowing from Complex. Gather enough Certs to open the locked doors upstairs and discover what enemies, mysteries, and high-tier loot the UESC have been hiding.

Map Availability

Both Dire Marsh and Night Marsh will run simultaneously for at least the first week of Season 2. After that, they'll rotate availability every 90 minutes. Most existing Dire Marsh contracts will work on either version of the map, with a few exceptions. MIDA and Traxus are also adding new Night Marsh-exclusive contracts tied to uncovering what the UESC are hiding in the dark.

If you already unlocked and completed a run on Dire Marsh in Season 1, both zones will be available to you immediately. Otherwise, both Marshes unlock at Runner Level 3.

New Runner Shell: Sentinel

Season 2 introduces Sentinel — Marathon's eighth runner shell, built around controlling space and locking down areas. If you want to protect your crew during a final exfil push or shut down an aggressive team rushing you in close quarters, this is your runner.

Abilities

  • Defender System (Prime) — Deploys an automated laser platform that identifies and destroys incoming enemy grenades and missiles. It also boosts weapon handling for all nearby crewmates. Keep an eye on its charge count — it can intercept a finite number of projectiles before going offline.
  • Snare Mine (Tactical) — A thrown proximity mine that detonates into several immobilizing submunitions. Bait enemies into your killzone and lock them in place to finish the fight on your terms.
  • Castle Doctrine (Trait) — Grants increased damage resistances after taking splash damage, and faster weapon handling for close-range weapons when you're surrounded by enemies.
  • Prey Tracker (Trait Ability) — Activates a short-range motion-tracking system that shows nearby moving targets on radar. Use it to gather intel and position your defenses accordingly.

You can find Sentinel's full ability and stats breakdown on the Sentinel runner page.

Two New Weapons

KKV-9SD

The KKV-9SD is a pistol-frame SMG with an integrated suppressor — a name that Marathon veterans will recognise. It fires at a blistering 1,200 rounds per minute, making it devastating in close quarters and effective against UESC units without alerting nearby shells. It also counters the heavy shotgun meta from Season 1, giving aggressive players something new to deal with.

The KKV comes with a new built-in folding stock mod. Keep it folded for hipfire benefits, or use the weapon action to extend it and trade those bonuses for ADS stability. This mod also works with the new D54 Battle Pistol.

D54 Battle Pistol

The D54 Battle Pistol fires in full-auto three-round bursts and excels in close-range duels. Bungie describes it as a hybrid between the BR33 Volley Rifle and the BRRT SMG — high handling, medium rate of fire, and an excellent pairing for sniper rifles and other long-range builds. Both new weapons also synergise with Sentinel's close-range bonuses from Castle Doctrine.

Rarities and New Chips

Season 2 reshuffles weapon rarities to shake up the meta and stop the same loadouts dominating run after run. On top of that, eight new chips are being added, including:

  • Brain Freeze Chip — Precision downs and kills trigger a small explosion that spreads Frost to nearby hostiles
  • Alarmist Chip — After a brief ADS period, projectile impacts create a terrifying proximity drone alert near the target
  • Scrapyard Chip — Defeating hostiles has a chance to spawn depleted heal items or standard materials

More weapon, mod, and balance details will be shared before Season 2 goes live.

Implant Overhaul

Implants are getting a naming overhaul in Season 2. Previously named after their stats with a random perk attached, implants will now be defined by their perk first — with the name of each implant reflecting what it actually does. Scanning your Vault or looting mid-run should be significantly easier when you can tell at a glance what each implant brings to your build.

All existing implant perks remain, split across head, torso, and legs — still scaling in stat benefit from gray to gold. Some implants will now only exist at higher rarity tiers to better balance powerful perks like Logic Bomb and Triage Cloaking Device. Each faction is also gaining its own family of faction-aligned implants that fits their playstyle: NuCaloric leans into healing and durability, MIDA into mobility and disruption.

New System: The Cradle

One of the biggest structural changes in Season 2 is The Cradle — a completely new progression system that replaces faction upgrade trees for runner shell stats. The Cradle is where you'll go to improve your runner's capabilities across six stat categories and unlock powerful perks across the season.

Progression works through the Matter Converter: feed it weapons, equipment, and other items to earn experience. Better loot equals more experience. Level up the Cradle to earn Energy, then allocate that Energy across any of the six stat categories. Hit certain breakpoints to unlock additional perks for your shells.

Critically, you can reallocate your Energy at any time with no penalties. Swap your stat focus between runs, adapt to new builds, experiment freely. Cradle progression is shared across all runner shells but resets at the start of each season.

The goal is direct access to the stats you want, whenever you want them — no more grinding a faction to a specific tier just to unlock a stat. Everything lives on one page.

Faction Progression and Contracts

With runner shell stat upgrades moving to the Cradle, the faction progression trees are being expanded with new Armory options — giving players more reliable access to weapons and gear throughout the season. Faction rep gains are also increasing across the board, with Bungie targeting a pace where most regular players can max out faction upgrades and hit VIP rank.

Notable changes include:

  • Reduced requirements to level up each faction, lowering the time to reach VIP in most cases. Less grinding for Biolens Seeds and Alien Alloys.
  • Standard Contracts now grant significantly more faction reputation
  • New rep sources added: Enhanced (green) valuables now grant reputation, as does defeating UESC

Contracts themselves are also being refined. Priority Contracts will focus on loot rewards rather than being hard progression gates — and they're no longer locked behind faction rep levels. Standard and Liaison contracts have had rough edges smoothed, and Cryo Archive contracts are being reworked to allow progress across multiple runs rather than forcing a vault key into every outing.

Experimental Queues and Duos

Season 2 continues the experimental queue program from Season 1, with more modes on the way — including further exploration of PvE content. Duos Queue is returning with a rotating daily queue across Perimeter, Dire Marsh, Night Marsh, and Outpost. Bungie is keeping the rotation tight to protect queue health and matchmaking times.

Ranked Updates

Ranked returns in Season 2 on June 14 with all-new rewards and a simplified structure. Low and High Stakes are being merged into a single queue with a 5,000 Loadout value minimum, and players must now bring a Holotag matching their current rank.

Other changes:

  • Progression adjusted to feel faster across all ranks
  • Win/loss points are now influenced by the average rank of opponents — beating higher-ranked players earns more, losing to them costs less
  • A new daily Ranked Sponsored Kit provides a loadout appropriate for your current rank
  • Players can earn Arachne reputation by exfiling with a Tag Chip

Bungie also flagged ongoing work on a system to make it harder for coordinated groups to exploit cross-team play in Ranked.

Cryo Archive Returns June 11

Cryo Archive continues its rotation in Season 2, with the first window opening on June 11 — right after Ranked goes live. Any Subroutines unlocked during Season 1 carry over.

Quality of Life Updates

  • Vault space increased — a fully upgraded Vault now holds up to 512 grid spaces
  • Batch select items in your Vault
  • New loot filter: select a loadout slot to see only items that can fill it
  • Simplified and streamlined lobby UI — Loadout and Vault menus are combined for faster access
  • Access select UI screens during matchmaking, including Factions, the Codex, and Settings
  • New PC and console cursor speed settings
  • New privacy settings including name obfuscation and a matchmaking timer offset
  • Additional security features to accelerate cheat detection and reduce cheat effectiveness
  • CPU performance improvements across the board, plus support for frame generation on PC
  • Network improvements to reduce disconnection rates, particularly for players outside the United States

Open Play Week — June 2 to June 9

To kick off Season 2, Bungie is opening Marathon's doors to everyone for a full week. Marathon's Open Play Week runs from June 2 to June 9, with the full game free to play on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Any progress made during the Open Play Week carries into the full Season 2.

Everyone starts Season 2 on a clean slate — Vaults are wiped, the personalised Armory resets, and shells return to factory defaults. Achievements, non-seasonal Codex progress, and cosmetics all carry over. Marathon will also be on sale around the launch date across all platforms.

For those already playing, Season 2 gameplay content is included at no additional cost.

Source: @MarathonTheGame on X

Browse the new Sentinel runner, all Runners, Weapons, Implants, and Cores on MarathonDB.