In an effort to provide Marathon with some additional staying power, Bungie said in May that it would be experimenting with PvE and PvE-adjacent offerings as Marathon seasons continue, giving players a chance to see what playing the game is like when they aren't drenched in sweat.

Today, the studio offered some preliminary details about Sponsored Survival, Marathon's first "PvP-lite" experimental mode that will be available during the inaugural week of its second season. Unlike Marathon's other playlists, the mode will allow a single squad to scavenge a map without the looming threat of PvP—to begin with, at least.

In Sponsored Survival, only one squad—or one player, if you're queueing solo—will deploy into season 2's new Night Marsh map. As you might guess from the name, you'll be restricted to sponsored kit loadouts, and you and your crew will be free to roam the map and pick fights with UESC bots and "some new enemies that lurk in the shadows." Initially, you'll be able to trust that you'll be completely unassailed by other players.

However, Bungie says that "after a certain period of time," that short-lived taste of PvE Marathon will start to get a lot more unpredictable. Rooks—Marathon's late-joining, zero-stake players—will begin backfilling into the map, injecting an escalating threat of potential player conflict.

Depending on the temperament of the Rook players who filter into your sessions, it's possible that you and your squad could find yourself collecting a small legion of robot auxiliaries. Or you might instead be hunted through the dark by homicidal killbot players with nothing to lose. Either way, at the end of the match, you'll all be funneled to the same spot: Sponsored Survival only has one exfil, and it only opens at the very end of the 18-minute timer.

"Once there, the decision is yours: Will you negotiate a temporary truce and exfil as one, or turn your weapons on each other in the dead of night?" Bungie said. "This asymmetrical mode changes the dynamics of a run, taking the heat off of the lone crew for the first few minutes of the match, while also keeping some of the fun, social unpredictability that Rooks bring to runs."

It's a tempting alternative to Marathon's typical form of tension, but I'm interested to see whether most Sponsored Survival matches will just end with Rooks pouncing on players who had the whole match to scrounge together the map's best loot. Who knows: Maybe this is the time runners and Rooks can find a lasting mutual understanding.

If not, Marathon players will have another shot at enjoying a less-overtly hostile Tau Ceti IV in season 2, as Bungie says it "will be testing a PVE mode in the latter half of Season 2."

Sponsored Survival will coincide with Marathon's free week, running from June 2 to June 9.

Path of Exile 2's massive Return of the Ancients update gave Grinding Gear Games' action RPG a massive spike in popularity over the weekend, but it's also proving to be a seriously buggy release, and the devs are already trying to iron out some major issues.

Patch 0.5 for Path of Exile 2 arrived a few days ago, bringing six new endgame storylines as well as new Ascendancy Classes, Pinnacle Bosses, and crafting systems, with Grinding Gear Games calling it "our biggest update ever." With that, in combination with the fact that the game just had a free weekend, it's no wonder that so many people have been playing it – it hit a peak of 421,596 concurrent players on Steam alone yesterday (thanks, SteamDB), which is the most it's seen since its early access launch, when it hit 578,569.

Obviously, plenty of people are having fun – you don't hit those numbers if they're not – but the update hasn't been without its issues. Plenty of users on Reddit have been sharing bug reports, from crashes to quest blockers.

"I'm not sure what's going on but it feels like they game is super buggy. Going through the campaign, I had to restart many times. Quest kept breaking. Characters not completting quests. Had Alva bug out 3 times and unable to talk to her until an area restart," one Reddit user writes.

"I have crashed to desktop no fewer than 15 times today. I can't recall a single CTD in god knows how many thousands of PoE1 hours," says another. "Am I crazy or is Delirium not dropping rewards as well?" another reads.

Thankfully, Grinding Gear Games is already on the case, trying to smooth things out. "While the launch was relatively stable and we've already deployed a number of fixes, there are still some issues we're working to resolve as quickly as possible," the team writes in a new blog post. These issues include endgame progression issues, such as a blocker in the Rite of the Nameless questline and Jado's quest, a bug that can see monsters in the Vaal Ruins become immortal, and more.

Elsewhere, the devs promise that "divine tinks will be back soon" once a bug "preventing item filter sounds from playing" is fixed, and client issues – like crashes, being unable to allocate passive skill nodes using a controller, and your number of passive skill points displaying incorrectly – are also being targeted.

All good targets for Grinding Gear Games to work on, but as fans are pointing out, "there are many more bugs" that still haven't been addressed – one Redditor from the thread above reckons it's "the buggiest league start i ever had," and content creator Talkative Tri summarises the general community sentiment as it being "the buggiest Path of Exile 2 and Path of Exile release of all time, especially in the endgame."

That's not to say that the devs aren't going to get to those issues too, of course. "Thank you for all of your reports and feedback so far. We'll continue working through these issues and will keep you updated as fixes become available," the devs conclude in their latest post.

Path of Exile co-creator tells developers "don't survey your players" because "'your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them.'"

It's the season where E3's ghost haunts us all, and Sony is gearing up to deliver a large amount of PlayStation State of Play with another 60 minutes of announcements set for this week. As such, here's how to watch the show and what we're expecting to see.

As with February's event, Sony has only really given a hint about one of the games set to show up; last time it was Marathon, but this time around, it's been confirmed we'll see more of Marvel's Wolverine ahead of its September 15, 2026 launch.

I'd expect to see the main villain revealed in Logan's adventure. After all, we've already seen Wolverine Villains like Omega Red and Mystique show up now, but I'd be shocked if Sabretooth doesn't take on the main antagonist role. Also, I'd very much expect to see a collector's edition to be revealed during or soon after the show.

One thing you can always count on in a showcase is Capcom, and while Resident Evil: Code Veronica remake and Street Fighter 6 Season 4 are rumored to be shown later in the week at Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest show, perhaps we'll get our first look at Resident Evil Requiem's DLC expansion and a release date for Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

Plus, Square Enix loves a good showcase, too. It's safe to assume we won't ever see Kingdom Hearts 4 (that way, when it does show up eventually, it'll be a surprise), but I can see something showing up. But probably not Final Fantasy 7 Re-whatever as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was announced at a Keighley show in 2023, so I'd be shocked if Remake Part 3 shows up at Sony's show, even if I'd bet we see it at some point this week.

How to watch the PlayStation State of Play June 2026 showcase

The PlayStation State of Play will air live on Thursday, February 12 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm GMT, with the show set to feature "60+ minutes of news"

Watch the State of Play steam here

The show will air live on PlayStation's YouTube and Twitch channels simultaneously, so just pick whatever platform you prefer.