Marathon Guide: How to Guarantee a Solo PvE Run
I finally figured out how to stop greedy scavengers from ruining a perfectly good swamp hunt.
Bungie clearly knows how to make shooting things feel incredible. Getting stripped of your loot while rocking a basic Sponsored Kit feels significantly less incredible. Season 2 gave us a dedicated PvE mode, meaning you can load into Dire Marsh and focus entirely on dropping AI enemies without checking your shoulder for a hostile sniper. But the game still tries to sneak some PvP in there. I am going to show you how to slam the door shut on that nonsense.
The Catch with Sponsored Survival
To get started, you need to select Sponsored Survival on the map screen. This drops you into Dire Marsh (Night). The game actively tries to ruin your run to make up for the lack of heavy crossfire.
That last one is the kicker. You queue up for a relaxing PvE run, but the game still tries to slip naked scavengers into your lobby. They start with nothing, but a lucky punch means you are heading back to the menu empty-handed.
How to Break the Matchmaking
Before you waste 18 minutes fighting off desperate swamp rats, you can actually manipulate the lobby settings to lock them out.
When you're sitting in the menu, simply disable the fill option. By choosing to drop in completely alone without a squad, the game logic seems to break. For whatever reason, queuing completely solo usually stops ROOKs from entering your instance entirely. You get the whole muddy nightmare to yourself.
Before you assume this is a flawless official feature, keep in mind it feels heavily like a matchmaking quirk. It isn't entirely foolproof. You might occasionally still see a stray ROOK slip through if the servers hiccup, but nine times out of ten, this method gives you a purely solo experience.
Surviving the UESC
Kicking the scavengers out only solves half your problem.
The AI forces wandering the marsh hit extremely hard. You are locked into whatever random junk the Faction handed you, meaning your overpowered weapon builds are completely useless here. Treat every single UESC patrol with extreme caution. Getting greedy with a bad kit will send you right back to orbit. If you are worried about losing ground, check out the Marathon Seasonal Wipes Progression Guide to see exactly how your stash is handled.
