Marathon’s Cryo Archive unlocks Friday after massive ARG effort

We may finally be about to learn a bit more about what happened to the abandoned colony on Tau Ceti in Bungie’s Marathon since players have finally completed the complex ARG puzzles needed to unlock the game’s first-ever raid experience: Cryo Archive. Bungie confirmed Thursday afternoon that players had unlocked the endgame zone following “a massive community effort orchestrated by #breach-protocol in the official Marathon Discord.”

Once that happened, Bungie released a launch trailer for Cryo Archive:

Ben Starr narrates the trailer, and most fans think he’s voicing the rampant AI Durandal from the original Marathon trilogy. “Such ambition for glory in the face of unknowable terror,” he says, among other very ominous things. The trailer takes us aboard the titular Marathon colony ship in orbit around Tau Ceti IV. In the game’s lore, the UESC Marathon went dark years ago. Once Earth finally received a distress signal, the Runners were dispatched to investigate it and the abandoned colony on Tau Ceti IV. The ARG essentially simulated hacking into the ship’s systems to grant us access.

“Cryo Archive is the first deck of the UESC Marathon, where you’ll find a labyrinth of cryopods, medical bays, and storage wings where colonists once eased into and out of deep sleep on their journey across the stars,” a Bungie blog post reads. It includes six interconnected wings with a central hub through which players will seek out frozen vaults with loot and “dark secrets.” Along the way, players will have to unlock various levels of security clearance to access different areas, ultimately leading to “leading to an entity even the UESC fears.” If the previous Marathon trilogy is any indication, then the boss-like entity shown at the end of the trailer is an alien known as a S’pht — essentially brains with powerful cybernetic bodies.

The post confirms that moving forward, Cryo Archive will only be available to play on weekends starting Friday, March 20, at 1 p.m. EDT. Players must have a minimum runner level of 25 with all six factions unlocked. They’ll also have to load in with a loadout that has a minimum value of 5,000 credits just to enter.