Bungie is already tweaking Marathon microtransactions and difficulty just days after launch

Marathon has only been out for a few days, but Bungie has already announced changes to two of the game's most contentious issues – aggressive microtransactions and punishing difficulty. A patch is coming this week.

Getting Marathon to launch wasn't easy. For a while, it looked like the game might become another casualty of PlayStation's live-service push. Before its first delay, Bungie was dealing with a plagiarism controversy, reports of internal trouble, and a market so saturated with extraction shooters that there didn't seem to be room for one more.

Once it actually launched, though, things went better than many expected. The player count isn't quite at ARC Raiders levels, but Marathon has built a reasonably healthy community and landed mostly well – except for two things: the microtransactions, which players have found uncomfortably pushy, and a difficulty level so brutal that streamers have been dropping the game mid-broadcast.

Bungie responded to both complaints through the official Marathon account on X, confirming the studio has seen the feedback and is already working on fixes. The first involves the in-game LUX currency. The $10 bundle previously gave 1,100 LUX – that's going up to 1,120, making it slightly easier to actually buy things within that price point. Anyone who already purchased $10 bundles will be credited 20 LUX per purchase retroactively, which suggests Bungie recognized the original offering wasn't great value.

Bungie said it wants purchases to offer "great value" and will keep working toward that going forward. It's a modest adjustment, but it at least signals a willingness to course-correct.

The difficulty side of the patch addresses navigation and resources. Objective nav points will now appear at 20 meters, making it easier to find your way around the maps. On top of that, levels will have more Med Cabinets and Munitions Crates, and Sponsored Kits will come with more starting ammo.