The Cord: Skins So Premium They'd Make Charter Blush.

Well what do we have here?

Bungie sent out a survey to a selection of players soliciting feedback on (POTENTIALLY) upcoming skins for Marathon, and they are causing quite a stir within a community already gearing up for the end-of-season-palooza that’ll bring about new events and 10 days of Cryo Archive.

(Dear Bungie, I was not made aware of whether or not these were NDA protected, they have been substantially proliferated in forums and chatrooms. If this article must be taken down, please let me know, thank you!)

But the game itself aside, today we get to talk about something a lot more visually intriguing: these skins, what precedent they set for future expectations, and whether this is what players have been waiting to sink their teeth (and hard earned cash into) or not.

First up is the surprising addition of not one, but two new “White Rabbit” themed skins for the Vandal and Recon shells, following up on Thief’s premium launch skin of the same motif.

When it was revealed that Thief (the suspected evolution of the launch trailer’s sniper shell) would be commemorated with an aptly titled White Rabbit skin, the description for that skin alluded to the fact that the skin was part and parcel to an ideology, but no one suspected that that ideology would be imposed on any other shell; in hindsight, it seems obvious. “There is no one White Rabbit, or so the legend goes”.

The community has recently been discussing the abandonment of hard silhouettes in favor of more eccentric cosmetics, so it’s quite timely that this survey goes out in the midst of that discussion. People will forgo shell identification at range in favor of just looking damn good. The Thief skin has her hair in dual buns to mimic rabbit ears, while the Vandal shell swaps its trailing sleeves for rabbit ears, the Recon skin is similarly adorned with “ear nubs” on its helmet. It’s these minor details that add so much by doing so little; these are already fan favorites and they’re not even officially confirmed yet, it makes you wonder what else Bungie has in the oven.

Moving on, we also have a look at two new skins for Triage and Assassin, which many have immediately likened to Destiny 2 “Trials of Osiris” cosmetics on account of their gilded motifs.

These have not been quite as unanimously agreed upon, but those who like them love them. In fact, when I shared that I personally find the black and gold color pallette to be overused, a user very lovingly replied with “Fuck you”, (you should’ve have deleted your comment dude, that was hilarious). On the other hand, twitter user @Kambyyy shared that they found the theme (mythological black and gold) to be underutilized in general in art.

Given that every skin in Marathon carries lore implications, it’ll be interesting to see where these skins specifically fit in the history of Tau Ceti IV, and what stories they draw from. Considering that “White Rabbit” is now multi-shell, I can only wonder if every shell will receive a gilded skin. Time will certainly tell.

The most jarring skin, in my opinion, has to once again go to Thief, who receives a “Japanese Oni” style skin that harkens back to Vandal’s “Crash Casket”.

To put this bluntly: this is fucking ridiculous in all the right ways. It’s bright, it’s red, and it’s mean; there’s nothing subtle about this. If “White Rabbit” is a thief in the night, this skin is a stick-up in broad daylight. The use of a Japanese mempo here exists purely as a means of intimidation, and I find that it achieves that handedly.

There’s really not much to add here other than the fact that this is one of the most blatant examples of a skin relaying an idea that we’ve seen thus far: this is not a Thief that will lurk around corners, this one is going to punch you in the mouth, really hard. It’s even better at relaying the “Crash Casket” identity than Vandal’s own skin does.

Now, the elephant in the room is that there is seemingly no leak for the Destroyer shell, since Vandal and Recon, and Triage and Assassin came as pairs, it’d suggest that Destroyer and Thief would round that out, however, Destroyer is nowhere to be found. It’s interesting, because there’s probably no better shell to slap an Oni mask on than Destroyer, and I’ll wait patiently for a Shogun Destroyer skin to make its way to center stage when the time is ready.

Outside of the shell skins, there are also a pair of weapon skins that leaked, which can be seen below.

The first is for the Retaliator LMG, which sports a pink and white color palette, seemingly matching the accompanying knife skin, which looks a lot more like a Japanese tanto than a simple recolor. While the colors might suggest a relation to the White Rabbit motif, I do not believe this to be the case, this is clearly something else entirely, and will possibly be part of a weekly bundle for a skin we have not seen quite yet. It is similar enough to the “Lucky Star” emblem or “Pink Mist” twin tap cosmetic skins that came with Thief’s White Rabbit bundle, but these colors alone do not suggest an overt association to the style itself. All of which is to say, it remains to be seen, as is the case with the rest of these cosmetics.

So, we’re clearly seeing an entirely new approach to cosmetics going into Season 2. Many players have voiced increasing concerns with the mediocre weekly bundle skins as the season has gone on, and have demanded more out-there skins. It seems, then, that Bungie is once again listening, and we should be seeing quite a few more truly envelope-pushing cosmetics in the near future.

Where is the Destroyer skin, Bungie?