00:06When a player starts a new season, I want them to feel like we've been able to kind of recapture
00:11the magic of like week one of Marathon launch.
00:15Everything is new, you don't know what's valuable yet.
00:18That feeling of discovery is going to be exciting and kind of push you to new stories and new journeys
00:24along your seasonal progression.
00:26The core thing we think about is how is that journey going to be interesting and fresh and how is
00:32it going to provide players different choices?
00:34I think it's going to be a really exciting time for people to sort of like chart a new course
00:38and sort of like finding their own new path.
00:57The narrative theme of season two is escalation. The UESC is tired of getting pushed around by the runners and
01:02they're fighting back.
01:03As their opposition escalates, so too does the anomaly. One of your jobs is to find out why.
01:09From the first moment you infill on Nightmarsh, you're going to feel tension.
01:13It is oppressive, unsettling. The creepiness factor gets ratcheted up.
01:22As night falls, the anomaly intensifies and digital psychosis hallucinations start to affect you.
01:30Confusing fragmented vocals and messages that really start to play with what the player is hearing and making them question
01:37what's in their head versus in the real world.
01:43After landing in Nightmarsh, all players will have an equipped flashlight by default.
01:49Nightmarsh is this interesting counterplay of do I go to the places where there is light and kind of comfort
01:55and safety?
01:56But doing so makes you a lot more visible to people who are hiding in the dark.
02:00When you are in those shadows, you want to have equipment that allows you to see in the dark using
02:05your cybernetic eyes.
02:06We really leaned into LIDAR as kind of our mechanic for runners to navigate in the dark.
02:12Once you start accumulating these tools and upgrading your loadout to be specifically tailored to fighting on Nightmarsh, you're going
02:20to become far more powerful.
02:24One thing we saw resonate with players from maps like Outpost was the way you could work your way through
02:29the map and earn access to treasure.
02:31That's the core principle of what we're looking to do on Nightmarsh.
02:35Players have kind of seen that there are maybe elevators or staircases up to something that has been closed off.
02:40And in Season 2, you're going to gain access to that space.
02:43This is the observation deck and science lab where the UESC has been studying the anomaly.
02:49That's going to be one of the most heavily guarded areas of the map.
02:51In there, it's going to be juicy loot.
02:54Ultimately, the real test of mastery on Nightmarsh is can you get into upper complex and can you raid that
03:01UESC treasure room up there?
03:07In Season 2, Sentinel is a new defensive shell.
03:11They're optimized for controlling space.
03:15You have all these different tools that you're able to deploy into the world to fortify an area and keep
03:22others out.
03:24You're able to put down this defender system that shoots down grenades out of the air.
03:35Whenever you take explosive damage, that's going to be a big buff to a bunch of your resistances.
03:39And additionally, when you're surrounded by enemies, your small arms are going to have increased reload speed and ready speed.
03:49Players are getting really good at gap closing and getting right in your face.
03:53But now with Sentinel, you throw down a snare mine and whenever anybody gets close to it,
04:01they're stopped in their tracks.
04:04You have an ability to be able to track.
04:06They literally will slide up from their sleeve and get a heads-up display.
04:12Snare set.
04:14Whenever anything is moving around, they're going to show up as a little blip.
04:17And that allows you to know where your threats are coming from, deploy all your tools,
04:21and give the information you need to effectively defend your area.
04:30The seasonal reef set allows us to change the journey of the things that you're going to care about.
04:36Just because you experienced it in Season 1, doesn't mean it's going to play out the same way in Season
04:402.
04:41You're taking a holistic look at every mod in the game, every mag, every optic, every chip,
04:46and seeing where they sit, what people like about them, which ones people don't like.
04:50We're flipping implants on their head.
04:52Now an implant is going to be perk first, stats second.
04:56You look at the name of the implant, and that's what the perk is. That's what it does.
05:00We're also going in and changing the rarity and the drop rate of some of these things.
05:04So a weapon you maybe got real used to seeing in Season 1, you might find a little less often
05:09in Season 2,
05:09and you're going to have to form a relationship with a new old reliable.
05:14There are going to be two new weapons being added to the sandbox.
05:17First one is the KKV.
05:19It's a small-arms SMG with an integrated suppressor,
05:22and it is excellent at just mowing down anything immediately right in front of you.
05:27Shotgun rushers, watch out.
05:37The second gun is the D54 Battle Pistol. It comes with an integrated red dot optic.
05:42We really see this as an excellent 1v1 strafe dueling weapon.
05:46You know, things are going crazy. Put that sniper back on your back and just pop out the D54 Battle
05:51Pistol, and you are just ready to go.
06:01In Season 2, everyone gets this fresh start, and they have a chance to go back through that journey from
06:07Zero to Hero.
06:08It allows us as designers to look at what we did and say, hey, how could we do this better?
06:13We've taken a look at a lot of our contracts, like in a single run, heavy traversal.
06:18I know everyone loves going from bio to field maintenance.
06:23How do we still keep the magic, but just remove some of those frustrations where it feels like you're throwing
06:28yourself against the wall?
06:31We're looking at things like material costs and how you're earning faction reputation, how you're earning it as a solo,
06:36how you're earning it as a crew.
06:39One of our big goals is that most marathon players can actually max out their faction upgrades and get to
06:45VIP ranks.
06:46You're our ticket. Our dead of night infiltrator.
06:51What we're really, really ultimately looking to do is make it so we're alleviating all of those challenges that might
06:58be blocking you from continuing to grow inside of the game.
07:02In Season 1, everything was tied to faction upgrades. If you want extra melee damage, you are having to rank
07:09up Arachne.
07:10With the Cradle, you get a single screen with all the runner shell stats, and you're able to pick how
07:15you're distributing points.
07:17Cradle XP comes from smashing down gear that you don't care about. You can batch, select a whole bunch of
07:23stuff, turn it into Cradle XP, and now you've got more stats for your runners.
07:26If you want to be the fastest runner on Tau Ceti, you can just go all in on agility right
07:32from the start.
07:33And we're not going to penalize you for wanting to reset. If you want to pull all your stats out
07:37of one and put it into something else, you can.
07:40That system is going to give players, I think, a lot more freedom to pick and choose how and what
07:46they want to upgrade than the faction upgrade system offered previously.
07:53As we're continuing to build seasons in the future, not just Season 2, but Season 3 and Season 4, we're
07:59going to keep hammering at how do we make it so everyone really appreciates that survival journey better.
08:04What can we improve? How can we shift this experience to just be cooler, just be more fun?
08:08I want to be able to have our game be this launching point into a whole bunch of different experiences
08:13and stories that players can have.
08:15That's sort of where it's leading to, is sort of how do we discover new frontiers for that gameplay.
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