I think I’m a rat: Marathon’s Rook class has made me face an unfortunate truth

I have a confession to make. I can’t stop playing as a Rook in Marathon. I’m sorry.

For the uninitiated, the Rook is basically Marathon’s Scav class. You can’t complete contracts as Rook, and their abilities are nothing special. But the special thing about it is that you will always spawn into a game that’s been going on for 10 minutes already, meaning that you’re likely to find all sorts of Runner Shell corpses filled with loot.

Sometimes, playing as Rook for a few rounds is a necessity. Since you don’t need to take your own gear, you can go on several Rook runs to try and loot up and fill your vault with the gear you need to take on contracts or enhance your survival odds in PvP. But me? I do it for the thrill of the rooking.

Rook is different from Marathon’s free Sponsored Kits, where you spawn in with bad gear and try to go from zero to hero. The Rook has its own upgrade path, including the ability to spawn in with claymore mines, a shotgun, a bigger backpack, and more.

Basically, it is the ultimate “rat” class. Or, as the image above suggests, a vulture.

Spawning into a match late has its benefits, as you can pick the bones of the battlefield clean, but it also means that whoever is still alive is likely fully geared up, and potentially in a group that is just dominating the lobby. Because of this, I will say, my success rate as a Rook is piss poor. Going up against fully geared players will almost always result in me getting utterly wrecked.

But I continue to chase those few rounds where I somehow come out on top, whether it be because of sitting behind my Claymore mines or third-partying like an absolute rodent, because it feels oh-so-good when things all come together, and I come away with new gear or a bunch of Credits to spend on gear.

While Rook doesn’t have a healing drone or grappling hook like some of Marathon’s other Runner Shells, its ability to “cloak” and blend in with other UESC bots so they won’t attack you comes in handy quite often, especially when players are duking it out with some high-level bots. Using the cloak ability to sneak around the bots and find an advantageous position to stab some players in the back is a thrill that I find myself addicted to lately.

Even with all Rook upgrades unlocked, you’re at a massive disadvantage against fully geared players. I think that’s also part of the thrill, because the odds are stacked against you as a Rook, and winning to escape with basically free loot is a genuine adrenaline rush. That’s why I like to sit in close quarters hallways with claymores galore.

I also keep running into other Rooks who feel the need to team up, like they are beholden to some sort of Rook code where you don’t fight other ones. No. This is Marathon. Fight me, fellow coward, and to the victor go the spoils.

I’ve been cussed out by other Rooks more times than I can count. Rooks seem to use proximity chat more than other players, I’ve noticed. But I am not out there rooking to make friends. I want your loot so I can go lose it again on Outpost or Cryo Archive.

I don’t know how or when I became this way. Maybe it’s because I’m a solo player now with no teammates to queue up with, so the rookery agrees with me on a spiritual level like it never could have before. Whatever it is, I’m not sure if I hate or love what I am becoming.

I am Rook. I am rat.

Fear me.

The post I think I’m a rat: Marathon’s Rook class has made me face an unfortunate truth appeared first on Destructoid.

The Play It Your Way update has dropped in PEAK, and it completely introduces the way we have played the game so far. If you felt that the general gameplay was a hard challenge, it all changes now. This guide will give you a quick overview of all the major changes and what you can expect from the patch.

Complete PEAK Play It Your Way update patch notes

Here’s an overview of all major changes made as part of the new patch.

Custom Runs

You can completely change how runs worked so far in PEAK. You can make them as easy or hard as you want. You can also choose which tools to spawn with and what kind of hazards you can encounter on your run. You can also tweak how the environmental hazards work and how severe/relaxing their effects are.

Mini Runs

If you don’t have time for a full-scale adventure, you can try out Mini Runs. They will allow you to play a single biome of the daily map. These quick runs can be quite intense without being unnecessarily long.

Campfire Autosaves

It’s now easier to pause and resume our adventures without losing much progress. All you need to do is reach a campfire. You’ll be able to save all your progress automatically by accessing a campfire, and you can quit. You can later resume the adventure from the autosave, and this works until you win, lose, or begin a fresh run.

Additionally, you can hang out at a campfire without any hunger or fog progression. It will only extinguish after the scout leaves.

Zombie Phobia mode

If you hated the zombies, you can now disable them completely on Custom Runs. However, you can also use the Zombie Phobia mode to make things less graphic if you want.

Here are some minor changes that are part of this patch.

• Achievements that need to be done in a single run will now maintain their progress if a player disconnects/reconnects (such as Gourmand or Mycology badges)
• Fixed a long-standing issue where interacting with a rope shooter’s rope immediately after it was fired could cause a division by zero, causing chaotic behaviour, including locking the player’s controls or sending them to the void.
• Fixed issue where sometimes scouts would not revive when reconnecting in cases where they should have.
• Made the endgame scout report work properly after disconnecting and reconnecting to a game.
•  Audio sliders and kick button will now show up immediately when a new player joins without needing to re-open the menu.
• Scouts that were skeletons when they disconnected will still be skeletons when they reconnect.
• Fixed a bug where Player 3 and Player 4 would spawn in the same location.
• Rescue Hook now doesn’t put you in a ragdolled state for as long, making it easier to use.

The post PEAK Play It Your Way update patch notes: Biggest changes and more appeared first on Destructoid.