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New Marathon Update Nerfs Knives & Bubble Shields, and Makes Other Changes

Marathon is the hottest new extraction shooter of 2026, and its most recent update brings some controversial changes. 

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Bungie has rolled out a new update for its sci-fi extraction shooter, Marathon, that decreases the amount of melee damage players can inflict on other Runners with knives and makes bubble shields more scarce, among other tweaks and bug fixes.

Runner-to-runner knife damage is being reduced

Marathon features a wealth of guns that come in all different shapes and sizes, most of which feel amazing to use, as a hallmark of any great Bungie game is buttery smooth first-person gunplay. However, Runners in Marathon are also automatically kitted with a knife that can be pulled out to increase running speed and, of course deal significant damage to unsuspecting UESC bots and enemy Runners alike.

Marathon players who like to stealthily hunt down their targets may be disappointed with this new 1.0.5.3 update, as it reduces the distance players can lunge during a knife attack by 10%. Furthermore, the update reduces the amount of bonus damage Runners receive from their Melee Damage stat by 50%, but only when attacking other Runners; this decrease won’t apply when going for knife kills against UESC bots. In a developer note, Bungie elaborated on the challenge of balancing Marathon‘s knife damage.

“Melee in Marathon is intended to be a high-risk but potent method to contest close-quarters weapons like shotguns and submachine guns. However, the breakpoints for quick melee kills show up too early in the Melee Damage stat progression, which means additional investment into a build isn’t required to get the maximum effective output. We don’t want to compromise on having melee feel powerful, but believe that getting to that maximum output should be the result of meaningful........

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