How to Get Holotags in Marathon Ranked Mode

Marathon’s new Ranked mode is set to start with its first beta weekend on Saturday, March 21 at 10 AM PT, and it runs until Tuesday, March 24 at 10 AM PT. Ranked is only open on weekends, and each weekend rotates between planet-side zones like Perimeter, Dire Marsh, and Outpost.

For the first weekend, Bungie is starting players on Perimeter, and only the Low Stakes queue will be available. You also need to be Runner Level 25 before you can even join the Ranked playlist.

If you’re planning to jump in, Holotags are one of the first things you need to understand. In Ranked, you must bring one Holotag in your backpack along with meeting the gear ante requirement. Holotags are tied to your run’s score target and loss penalty, so they are a big part of how Ranked works.

In this guide, we’re going over every way you can get Holotags in Marathon Ranked mode and what to keep in mind before using them.

Where to Get Holotags in Marathon Ranked Mode

The most direct way to get Holotags is through the Armory. You can buy them with credits, but there’s a catch: you can only purchase Holotags up to your current rank tier. So if you’re ranked Gold, you can buy Gold, Silver, and Bronze Holotags.

If you reach Platinum, that opens the door to Platinum tags as well. There are six tiers in total: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Pinnacle. Bronze, Silver, and Gold are used for Low Stakes, while Platinum and above are for High Stakes.

The second way to get Holotags is by killing an enemy Runner and extracting with their Holotag. That means if another player brings one into the match and you take them out, you can leave with that Holotag and save it for a future Ranked run.

That can be a smart way to build up better tags without spending credits every time. The doc also notes that Holotags persist after exfil and can even be sold for full value, which makes them more useful than just a one-match item.

One important thing here: Tag Chips are not Holotags. Tag Chips drop from UESC and map events, and while they help with score and overperformance capacity, they are not a source for queueing into Ranked. So if your goal is simply to get Holotags, your two real sources are the Armory and enemy Runners.

If you want a more in-depth breakdown of Marathon's Ranked mode, check out our article here.

What do you think about Marathon’s Holotag system so far? Does it sound like a fun risk-reward setup, or a bit too punishing?