How do Marathon seasonal wipes work?

Bungie’s wipe policy: seasons that start everyone fresh

Bungie has made seasonal wipes a core part of Marathon’s live model. The developer confirmed that every season will reset players’ progression and inventories on a regular cadence — wiping out gear, season contracts, faction progression and player level — so that the community begins each season on a clean slate.

The first two seasons were detailed alongside the launch roadmap: Season 1 will run until June and Season 2 will follow through August, and Bungie has said the content delivered across seasons will be free for all players. The studio presents wipes as a deliberate design choice to prevent long‑term power creep and to keep each season feeling meaningful and competitive.

What the wipes mean in practice:

• Players lose their equipped gear and earned seasonal progression at the end of each season.
• Each season introduces new maps, events, and gear that will be available to everybody.
• No paid gates are required to access season content — the new features are free for the community.

Why Bungie is doing this: the developer argues seasonal resets level the playing field and let the whole player base experience new seasonal systems together, rather than locking latecomers out behind progression parity. It’s the same philosophy Bungie applied to Destiny’s seasonal cadence, refactored for Marathon’s extraction‑shooter loop where gear and extractable loot matter a great deal.

How players should prepare: expect each run to matter only for the current season. Focus on short‑term goals, test new builds during active windows, and treat seasons as opportunities to experiment rather than permanent progression tracks. Bungie also says it will keep adding free content and quality‑of‑life updates between seasons, so the reset is meant to refresh the meta rather than punish players.