The Cord: Digital Grenades, Behavioral Grenades, and Financial Grenades.

 Last week was a particularly eventful one in the ongoing saga of Bungie’s Marathon, starting with last week’s balance patch 1.0.6.3.

The usual suspects were addressed; performance issues, bugs, item economy, et al. The most significant of which was the long awaited address to the controversial “grenade spam” issue that was most prevalent in the game’s endgame experience; Cryo Archive.

The change came in the form of stack limitations, where offensive grenades in one’s loadout now take up two slots each and can no longer stack, except for claymores which were reduced from stacking in threes to stacking in pairs. Moreover, armory barter limits were gutted by 70%; now allowing only 3 of each grenade to be purchased per daily refresh.

The change is welcome, to be sure, but many wondered where or not it’d be effective enough, after all, players normally only needed 5-10 well placed grenades to eliminate an unsuspecting team that, in turn, would replenish the grenades they’d just used. Lo and behold, grenade spams have been reduced, but not entirely mitigated. As Cryo Archive reopened on Thursday it became clear that hoarding explosives was still far too efficient a mechanic to do away with over stack limitations; results have shown, but it’s seemingly still not quite enough to encourage true gunfights over explosive lobs.

A popular idea that has made its rounds among the community is mechanical alterations to the way in which grenades fundamentally work; whether throwing grenades be tied to the shell’s heat generation (vis a vis melee), implementing a longer “cook timer” on grenades (significantly reducing rapid throwing or allowing the receiver more time to reposition), or both. I would imagine that the stack limitation was a short term fix while the team works on a proper and fair balance for the future, but for now, the stack size limitations have yielded results, albeit not potent enough according to public consensus.

As we ramp up for the final few weeks of the game’s debut season, Bungie has also raised the economy floor by doing away with “Gray” or “Standard” Sponsored Kits, replacing them instead with their “Green” or “Advanced” counterparts until the end of the season. Moreover, “Sponsored Runs” have left Dire Marsh and been relocated to the game’s introductory map, Perimeter. The reasoning behind this, according to game director Joe Ziegler, is “UPPING THE GAME”. As the loot disparity between hardcore players and casual players grows, the intention is to offer casual players slightly more accessibility so that they might be able to have a fighting chance in a game increasingly populated by players clad in end game level gear; no matter where you infiltrate on Tau Ceti IV these days, you’re seemingly only ever one POI away from a team Sekigucci’d down to the socks; and a gray Overrun in that economy is nothing more than a paper weight. [Editor’s Note (Geezaws is also the editor): A green Overrun is a fucking paper weight, too, but at least the Advanced CyAc kit comes with a green shield, GGs].

Over the next three to four weeks expect to see no shortage of Gold and Purple gear as players rush in to bleed their vaults before the season wipe; it’ll only get more volatile from here.

The most significant event from last week is the now infamous “Compiler Loot Room OOB (Out-of-Bounds) Exploit”. Secretly known about for weeks among the game’s more hardcore player base, it became exponentially popularized by “NAPainter”, a player now almost synonymous with the very idea of Marathon Exploits. Players may know Painter from the “Thief Grapple Movement Tech” exploit, or the “Ammo Crate Movement Tech”. While those were met with their own fair share of Backlash from the community, this “OOB” exploit caused a potentially community-fracturing shitstorm. While many frown upon any and all exploitations being used in games, especially PvP based games where an exploit will give someone a guaranteed advantage over another player, this one felt particularly sinister; so let’s get into it.

On May 9th, 2026, player NAPainter abused an Out-Of-Bounds exploit on Cryo Archive to get himself into the post-Compiler fight reward loot room before an enemy team had finished defeating the compiler and opening the room the intended way. Once the team had beaten the Compiler, in what we now know was their first clear, Painter and his team surprised the team in the loot room and ended their run while mockingly saying “Hey Buddies! How are you?”.

The backlash was instant and raucous, with the majority of players lambasting Painter's decision to “clip farm” with trolling instead of perhaps letting the team live in a more heartwarming, humorous version of events. While some players defended his use of the exploit and behavior during the clip, which you can watch [Here], it became clear that this was the sort of publicity that Marathon did not need coming out of Sony’s Earning Call (which we’ll also discuss towards the end). The conversation of “This game is busted and popularizing it will quite literally scare players from returning or ever touching the game” became the podium upon which many players took a stand to call for Painter’s permanent ban. I myself called for some form of retroactive punishment, whether a temporary ban or vault wipe of some sort. The fact of the matter is that Bungie has a long history of letting exploit abuse slide, but that was with Destiny, an experience that is firmly a PvE experience. In Marathon, where PvP is the game’s bread and butter, using an exploit to destroy an enemy team may make them rethink a two month time sink to ascend the apex if what’s waiting for them is exploits and, very arguably, full blown cheating. Bungie promised players a zero tolerance policy on cheating, and many players feel as though this more-than-fits that classification.

What we cannot stoop to is death threats, we can discuss the controversy angrily and impassioned, but we are not going to call for Painter’s death over a video game exploit; knock that shit off. He is a self-aware asshat seemingly bent on abusing any and all exploits, even responding to a tweet with “im not playing normal even if they fix every exploit. I live and breath playing like a monkey maxed out on xanax”. Painter is clearly a person motivated by a near explicit desire to bring games to their breaking point; and while that’s certainly admirable through one lens, even he is aware that it is downright deplorable in the eyes of the average player; and rightfully so.

This event has put a magnifying glass on the rift that separates the game’s top end players from the average flock. While more skilled players that are regularly paying the Compiler a visit multiple times a week seemingly do not mind the transgression as much; players that have struggled to get to the peak of the climb have found it demotivating; questioning the very integrity of the game, or at least the heavy hand Bungie has promised to address exploits and cheating with.

Ultimately, exploits are exploits, they are not intended means of engagement and should be curbed as soon as possible. Exploits that are abused to get a substantial advantage over players to the point where it can even devalue the product should be met with swift and appropriate action from the developers. What we will not do is start slinging death threats at players who abuse exploits in a video game. Far be it from me to suggest that it’s “just a game”, I know all too well how personal video games can be, but there absolutely must be a line drawn. I don’t know how Bungie plans to handle this issue; I do not know if gear will be refunded to the team or if that team even cares anymore. I don’t know when Painter is going to do something like this again, and I don’t quite know what the best mitigation for this sort of behavior is. Only time will tell how Bungie decides to handle this, and they should probably say something sooner than later considering how volatile this situation truly is. What I will know is what Painter’s Modus Operandi is, as I will be speaking with him tomorrow afternoon for an “interview” that will go up on Wednesday. So stay tuned for that.

Lastly, we need to discuss the elephant in the room, Sony Corporation’s Earnings Call.

We got quite a bit of information from that call with respect to Sony’s live service initiative and, of course, where Marathon sits within that portfolio. Across the board, Sony’s gaming division is doing better than it has been; which is expected considering they’ve effectively monopolized the high end console market and are looking at effective exclusivity with Rockstar’s upcoming flagship nuclear bomb, Grand Theft Auto VI. This is important to note; Sony has consistently operated with a “rising tide lifts all boats” mindset when it comes to their portfolio, often continuing to fund less profitable projects in the interest of portfolio diversity, especially when those games have strong bases and critical acclaim. We see this with Team Asobi and Housemarque. While both of those studios’ sales pale in comparison to those of Insomniac, Santa Monica, or Naughty Dog; Sony is still intent on funding those studio’s projects. Many expect a sequel to 2024’s Game of The Year Astro Bot, and cult classic Returnal has just received a spiritual successor in the similarly acclaimed Saros. 

All of this is to say, for every Spider-Man, there will be an Astro Bot, and for every God of War, there will be a Returnal. Analogously, then, one could assume that for every Helldivers 2, there will almost certainly be a Marathon. So it should come as no surprise that CFO Lin Tao announced that SIE does indeed intend on continuing support for Bungie’s latest release. This is even reinforced by the now castigated impairment that every armchair analyst has told you is the worst financial fuck up since the Lehman Brothers went under. 

To be explicitly clear, an impairment is when an asset's market value falls below its book value. Which means that Sony assessed that Bungie is not actually worth what it thought it was. To make this even simpler:

Imagine that you’re in the market for a house during a particularly hot market; you spend $1 Million on a house that looks good in all the right places and is quite ideal for your current life plan. A few years later; you notice that the house’s plumbing is actually subpar, and the housing market has deflated a bit. You realize now that instead of the asset having appreciated from $1 Million to what you were hoping would be $1.3 Million, it was actually only ever worth $900,000 in a colder market, and you actually have to spend another $100,000 on fixing the pipes; the house is currently only worth $800,000 as a result.

However, despite that, the house still has good bones (goodwill) and, for the most part, suits your needs (contributing to a live service initiative); you’re probably not interested in selling the house, it’s ultimately a bit of a fixer-upper. 

Saying that the impairment has affected everything except good will is a clear indication that Sony actually believes in Bungie’s ability to bounce back based on prior performance and internal projections based on Strategy and Planning; this is quite literally as scientific as business can ever hope to get.

You may be wondering what the “hot housing market” is analogous to; and it’s actually two pronged. The obvious note is that Bungie was acquired during the “Covid gaming market boom”; everything was overpriced. Xbox overpaid for ABK and had to write down a 7% impairment to the tune of $600 Million, Take Two had to take down an impairment on Zynga, and Embracer group had to all but bow out of the industry after what I can only imagine was a cocaine fueled acquisition frenzy during the same time. Sony overpaid for bungie by roughly 20%, they’re eating the cost (paying for the plumbing and realizing they overpaid in a hot housing market) in order to realize more appropriate future earnings projections.

To be clear, a $750 Million impairment is not “good”, but this isn’t some nail-in-the-coffin for Bungie. It may spell trouble for Destiny’s longevity in the very near future, but the horse that SIE is betting on is indeed Marathon. I must also state incredibly plainly: it is a federal crime to lie to investors on an earnings call, and if it is ever discovered that Sony is engaging in deception, losing $4 Billion on Bungie is going to look like dropping a quarter in a parking lot. Sony is a fortune 500 company, they are under the eye of the IRS and every major financial regulation organization on the planet: they’re not lying, they can’t. This is not “cope”, it’s not “shilling”, it’s Financial Accounting 101.

And yet, something tells me that someone 8 timezones away is going to insist that I sell my house instead off fixing the fucking toilet. Hey man, I actually like the back porch quite a lot.