Marathon's progression spine is the six-faction contract system. Arachne handles aggressive PvP work, rewarding kill streaks and finishers, and its Armory leans toward lethal weapon mods and implants. CyberAcme is the gateway faction: its Liaison Contracts are what unlock the other five, and its contracts cover broad general-purpose work, with an Armory full of ammo, backpacks, healing items, and key templates. Sekiguchi Genetics centers on Runner Shell cores and ability cooldowns, stocking cores and implants that specialize how your Shell plays. MIDA rewards sabotage, explosives, and disruption, selling grenades and area-control equipment. NuCaloric covers survival and recovery, with shield charges, patch kits, and self-revive access that make runs cheaper and safer. Traxus runs high-value asset extraction and sells the top-tier weapons, attachments, and mods that anchor an endgame loadout.
Before each run, you pick a contract from any unlocked faction and carry that objective into the match. Completing it and extracting alive earns reputation with that faction, plus Credits and XP. Pushing a faction's rank widens what you can buy from its Armory, from free sponsor kits to higher-end weapons, mods, and gear, all purchased with looted scrap. Your Runner Shell's actual stats are handled separately, through the Cradle, where you convert spare loot into points and spend them across your Shell's stat categories.
The catch is that all six factions reset every season. Reputation across every faction drops back to zero, leaving a full rank ladder to rebuild on each one. Players who push faction rank early get compounding advantages for the rest of the season: deeper Armory access, better kits, cheaper recovery after a wipe. Players who fall behind feel the gap every single run.
This is the single most common reason players buy a Marathon boost. Faction work isn't a side activity. It dictates what gear you can buy, how fast you recover after dying, and which endgame content your account can realistically queue into. Grinding all six factions yourself runs into hundreds of hours per season. Letting a booster handle it frees you up for the parts of Marathon you actually want to play, like PvP, raid runs, or just enjoying the gunplay without watching your vault drain.