Marathon’s most important new update has some truly bizarre restrictions

Bungie has announced Marathon’s raid-like Cryo Archive will only be playable at specific times, as it details the level requirements.

Live service game Marathon officially launched earlier this month but developer Bungie has held back several modes, as players acclimatise to the extraction shooter.

One of these is ranked play, but the other, more exciting, mode is the Cryo Archive. This was pitched as Marathon’s equivalent to Destiny style raids, which add puzzle-solving elements into the scramble for loot.

Bungie kicked off its rollout of the Cryo Archive earlier this week, tasking players with collectively taking down 500 million UESC robots, in a similar manner to Helldivers 2, to gain access. Now, with that stage completed, the Cryo Archive has officially opened for business… sort of.

As outlined in a blog post from Bungie, there are some very odd caveats. The biggest is that the Cryo Archive, which opens from today (March 20) at 5pm GMT, will only be playable on weekends.

Incredibly, though, they haven’t bothered to say when access to the mode will end, so it’s currently unclear when the ‘weekend’ is over, from the game’s point of view.

This same logic is being applied to the ranked mode, which will go live from Saturday, March 21 at 5pm GMT. Although for some reason it does have a confirmed end time, at Tuesday March 24 at 5pm GMT.

Bungie has described ranked play as being in ‘beta’, but for the foreseeable future at least, it will also only run on weekends, with each weekend taking place on a different planet-side zone.

For this weekend, ranked play will take place in the beginner area Perimeter. There will be two queue options with different matchmaking pools – Low Stakes and High Stakes – but for the first weekend, only Low Stakes will be available ‘to give people a chance to start climbing the ladder and prepare for High Stakes’.

It’s unclear why Bungie is restricting access to these modes to weekends, but it means if you haven’t already met the entry requirements, or don’t have time to spare this weekend, you’ll likely have to wait until the following weekend to give it a shot.

What are the entry requirements for Marathon’s Cryo Archive and ranked play?

To access the Cryo Archive, players will need a minimum Runner level of 25, all six factions unlocked (with liason contracts completed), and a minimum loadout value of 5,000 credits. The latter is the value of your equipped gear, and not the credits you have stored up.

If you meet these requirements, you’ll be able to obtain a one-time Cryo Archive Sponsored Kit from the Armory. This contains blue tier gear and is designed so you can run through the Cryo Archive without having to risk your favourite weapons on the first attempt.

It’s also worth noting you can’t play Cryo Archive solo, so you’ll need to either team up with friends, or be matched with random players online in the solo queue, in order to participate.

For those looking to try out ranked play this weekend, the only prerequisite is that you’re level 25.

As for what you can expect in the Cryo Archive, Bungie describes it as a ‘labyrinthian layout’ with six interconnected wings and a central hub, with frozen Vaults that contain ‘powerful loot and dark secrets’.

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