Since Marathon launched in early March, the PvPvE extraction shooter has been having a rough time with player retention, dropping from a peak Steam concurrent player count of 88,337 players shortly after launch to daily peaks of just around 5,000-6,000. Bungie recently announced that it would be testing a much-requested PvE-only mode , with the new roguelite Vault Breaker game mode going live from July 21 to August 4.

Now, in a recent developer blog post , Bungie explained that the Vault Breaker test is simply the first step into the PvE gameplay and confirmed that it will be taking the PvE gameplay a step further in Season 3. It's unclear whether this will build on the existing Vault Breaker game mode or if it will be a new PvE game mode entirely. Bungie has said that it will use lessons and feedback from Vault Breaker in the design and development of what it calls the "full PvE mode," however.