Bungie is launching an experimental duos queue for its extraction shooter Marathon, responding to sustained player requests since the game's release. The test begins on 18 March at 10 AM PT and will run for approximately 2 weeks. This limited experiment is a direct response to community feedback asking for a two-player squad option, indicating the studio is actively iterating based on player behavior.

The test is confined to the Perimeter zone and has strict participation rules. Players must already be in a premade squad of two; there is no solo matchmaking into the mode. Matches will pair duos exclusively against other duos. The game director explicitly warned that "some things will be jank," framing this as a raw data-gathering exercise rather than a finished feature.

A key uncertainty is how two-player teams will navigate Marathon's notoriously high time-to-kill in non-PvP encounters, a gameplay element Bungie acknowledges needs tuning. The current zone-select UX is a temporary placeholder. The data from this "wider scale" test will determine if and how a permanent duos queue is implemented, representing a concrete step in Marathon's post-launch evolution driven by specific player demand.