Does Marathon have any PvE game modes? Answered

Bungie has fully unveiled its new extraction shooter, Marathon, and now fans want to know everything they can about the upcoming game. The recent gameplay showcase in April demonstrated plenty about what kind of content and features fans can expect from Marathon, but there was a lingering question from the community after the showcase ended. Many players in the community want to know whether or not Marathon will have any sort of PvE game mode.

With Marathon being a multiplayer extraction shooter, it will naturally feature plenty of PvP action. One of the primary goals in Marathon is to eliminate other real players to steal their loot and add it to your inventory. However, there are also NPCs on the map you can kill for free loot. The question is, will there be an entire mode dedicated to strictly PvE, or will Marathon only have PvP modes?

The short answer to this question is that we have no official confirmation about any PvE game modes in Marathon. Bungie didn't disclose that information during the April showcase, as all we got to see were content creators taking part in the standard PvP mode. This mode also features NPCs, as we previously explained, so you can consider the mode to be PvPvE.

While many fans are happy with dropping into the standard mode every time in Marathon, other fans might not like the prospect of constantly having to worry about real players killing them and taking their loot. So this crowd is more interested in a strictly PvE game mode that allows them to focus on killing NPCs and maybe partaking in some story missions where more lore in Marathon is revealed.

Again, Bungie didn't confirm or deny a mode like this during the April showcase. However, at the end of the event, we did get treated to an eight-minute cinematic gameplay short that could hint at some sort of PvE mode in Marathon.

The short is extremely well-done and seems to feature NPCs attacking the main players that are being shown throughout the eight minutes of footage. Of course, the short could also be depicting PvP action, and due to the nature of the footage, it just looks like NPCs.

This is the only piece of evidence we theoretically have that points to some kind of PvE mode in Marathon. However, it might simply be a graphic representation of the base PvPvE mode, so don't get your hopes up just yet.

We also have to consider that Marathon is still in its alpha build, with the full launch not arriving until September 2025. So, between now and then, Bungie could reveal some kind of PvE mode that won't be included in the alpha build.

We'll simply have to wait and see what Bungie has up its sleeve with Marathon in the coming months.

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