Bungie provides details on Marathon's imminent Recon buff 'by popular demand', revealing an improved Echo Pulse and a 'more aggressive' tracker drone

Recon's area scanning ability will soon distinguish between AI and human enemies.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

Recon is my favourite Shell to play as in Marathon , so I was surprised to learn that she is considered one of the weaker characters in Bungie's extraction shooter.

This is true both for the PC Gamer team and, apparently, Bungie themselves.

Yesterday, game director Joe Ziegler revealed that Marathon's intelligence-focussed Shell would be getting "more oomph", alongside other changes like similar buffs for Vandal and a nerf to Marathon's knife .

Bungie revealed two changes coming to Recon, the first of which is a significant tweak to her Echo Pulse ability.

This power lets Recon briefly scan the environment for hostiles, identifying their approximate positions via little red diamonds on the HUD.

But with the changes coming on April 14, Recon's Echo Pulse will now identify whether that hostile is an AI controlled UESC robot or a human runner.

As part of this change, Bungie is making Echo Pulse less visible to enemies, making it tougher for enemy Runners "to gauge if they're in range." Depending on the extent of the adjustment, this could be a bigger deal than human/AI delineation.

You can often tell the difference between UESC and human players as Recon anyway by watching how they move, but there's not much you can do about the big yellow-green wave that emanates from your position.

Enemy Runners do have a potential counter to this power boost, though.

Using the Signal Jammer before being hit by Echo Pulse will make them show up as UESC, letting them potentially turn the tables on Recon.

The other major adjustment is to Recon's tracker drone, which Bungie says is "about to get a bit more aggressive".

Specifically, Bungie is changing it so that it can select a new target if it cannot reach its current target.

This should help alleviate frustrating moments when Recon's spider buddy gets stuck on a random piece of nearby geometry, resulting in it often blowing up uselessly and, occasionally, causing damage to yourself.

I can see this change, having issues of its own if there are lots of potential targets in an area, though hopefully Bungie have already taken this into account.

All of this should put Recon on a more even standing with other Shells, and is obviously exciting for me personally.

As for the changes Bungie has in store for Vandal and elsewhere, I'm sure we'll find out about those soon enough.

Marathon best weapons tier list : Our top picks Marathon best characters tier list : Top Runner Shells Marathon Ranked : More risk, more reward Marathon roadmap : What's coming Marathon Lockbox Keys : How to get 'em Marathon upgrades : Which to pick Marathon DCON locations : Contract dropboxes
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.