One of the core concepts behind extraction shooters is to gradually increase the standard of equipment in your permanent inventory, and thus, the value of your belongings. However, Marathon suffers from the exact same issue that’s plagued players of Arc Raiders and Escape From Tarkov over the years: Your stash is too damn small!
Known technically as your vault in Marathon, this is where all of your items are stored, from weapons and mods to consumables and resources. At the start, you’ll have 160 individual slots. While that may sound like a lot, weapons such as assault and sniper rifles take up eight slots apiece, smaller weapons and backpacks take four, while mods, cores, and equipment take up two each. After just a few successful exfils, you’ll hit the limit quickly. Too quickly.
As a result, far too much of my time in Marathon thus far has been spent sifting through my stuff, figuring out exactly what I can get rid of, and what I need to keep. It isn’t helped by the fact the game is so new that I don’t recognize all the icons yet, so I have to hover over most to remind myself what they do before deciding on their fate. It’s even worse if you’re playing on console, thanks to the infuriating cursor system that’s clearly designed for use by mouse and keyboard, despite that console players use controllers, to the point Polygon deputy editor Ari Notis described it in Slack as “maybe the worst menu that’s ever been designed in a video game.” [Ed. note: This was before he had his coffee.]
Which leads me onto my next point: why do different items have identical icons, Bungie? Every body part-specific implant looks exactly the same. Despite having multiple leg implants, for example, it’s impossible to know the difference without looking at the item descriptions. I understand the latitude for visual differences is limited in such a small space, but are you really saying there’s no way to distinguish at a glance between a torso implant that grants increased loot speed while inside smoke and one that turns you invisible while using a self-revive?
I do understand the reason for limited vault space: it eliminates gear fear. You can also upgrade your vault space gradually, but it isn’t cheap: 28,500 credits in total, along with a heap of required resources. However, Marathon also has mandatory progress wipes at the end of each season, aka every three months, so everyone will lose their stuff anyway. Let us own a few more virtual possessions in the interim, please. And even though Arc Raiders had the same issue in its early days, the Marathon vault is even smaller, making it much more painful.