Bungie has pulled four weapon skins from Marathon‘s in-game store after an “unfinished art” issue caused them to render incorrectly – in at least one case producing a bright, spectrum-cycling block of color – with a fix confirmed for the mid-season update on Tuesday, July 21, as reported by PCGamesN.
Here’s the context: The affected bundle is the Arcana Crusade pack, a black-and-white themed cosmetic collection sold through Marathon‘s in-game store. The most visible symptom showed up on the Bully SMG, which was displaying as a bright block of color cycling through the entire visible spectrum rather than its intended design – a bug the Marathon subreddit immediately christened the “RGBully.” Bungie confirmed that all four skins in the bundle have been disabled and that “ownership is preserved,” meaning anyone who purchased the pack will regain access to the skins once the patch lands. The studio even leaned into the community naming, joking that “The RGBully will always remember this time with you fondly.”
The mid-season update arriving July 21 is shaping up to carry more than just the cosmetic fix. Bungie says a blog dropping later this week will detail the new Vault Breaker mode – a repeatable endgame format tied to the Cryo Archive that limits loot extraction into the main economy – alongside balance changes, weapon adjustments, and a buff to Cradle progression. The studio acknowledged it has “been a little quiet out here” and says it wants “to get the ball rolling again,” while also soliciting player feedback on Marathon‘s current state.
Honestly, the fast removal and clear ownership guarantee are exactly the right moves here – this is paid cosmetic content, and letting bugged skins sit in players’ inventories with no communication would have caused significantly more damage than a temporary disable. What’s harder to ignore is that this is happening during an already fragile window for the game. Marathon‘s player retention has been under pressure. A cosmetic rendering failure in a live-service shooter is mundane on its own; in this context it lands as another item on a checklist the studio really needs to stop adding to.
The community reaction has been notably good-natured – the “RGBully” nickname and the Reddit thread already asking Bungie to ship it as a novelty skin suggest players are still engaged enough to joke about it rather than walk away. That goodwill has limits, though, especially when paying customers are the ones whose purchases broke. Bungie responding with humor while also committing to a concrete fix date threads that needle reasonably well, but the execution of the July 21 patch is what will actually matter.
What remains unclear is how the “unfinished art” ended up in a paid, purchasable bundle in the first place. Bungie hasn’t detailed what broke in the asset pipeline, and given that this isn’t the first time visual issues have surfaced on Marathon weapons and cosmetics, the process question is worth asking. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the only storefront-adjacent issue Marathon has run into since launch.
What to watch: The blog Bungie has promised before July 21 will be the first detailed look at what to expect, since the full patch notes are saved for launch day. The blog should clarify the scope around Vault Breaker mode and progression changes – and whether those updates address the retention concerns that have dogged Marathon since launch.
If you bought the Arcana Crusade pack, are you holding out for the fix or did this knock your confidence in purchasing cosmetics from the store? Let us know in the comments, and keep an eye on our Marathon coverage for updates when that mid-season blog drops.
