Marathon patch increases sound range, players blame spike in third-party fights

A recent Marathon update made a number of changes — sponsored kit ammo, thermal scope effectiveness, and UESC bot health — but the community has homed in on one brief line in the notes: "Increased the range gunfire and explosions can be heard from." Since the patch, many players report more frequent fights, third‑party ambushes and rougher solo sessions.

Players describe matches turning into near‑constant third‑party skirmishes. "Every match has become a third party fest now, you can hear gunfire too far away with how small the maps are. It was fine before, why was this changed?" one Reddit user wrote, while another said it "genuinely feels like half the server congregates wherever the first shot is fired." Another post summed up the solo experience: "It's awful in solos, can't shoot a single bullet without free kitted Assassins third‑partying me in succession." There was no separate dev note explaining the audio tweak, so many assume it was intended to boost PvP encounters.

marathon, patch notes, sound range, gunfire, explosions, third party, ambushes, solos, reddit, pvp