Marathon: Difference between revisions

Marathon is a series of first-person shooter games started by [[Bungie]]. The original game was only released for Macs in 1994, and served as a (superior) stand-in for 1993's DOOM, since that classic title was only available for Windows/DOS. As with the [[Myth]] series, Bungie made the first two games ("Marathon" and "Marathon 2: Durandal"), and then the third was made by another studio. In this case, the third game was "Marathon Infinity", and it was made by [[wikipedia:Double Aught|Double Aught]], a short-lived game studio spun off from Bungie. Unlike Myth III, the third Marathon game stayed close to its roots since it was made by former Bungie developers.

[[Multiplayer|Unlike Oni]], Marathon was shipped with multiplayer (albeit LAN-only), and was mod-ready to begin with; Bungie also released some of their development tools. Later, the Marathon 2 source code was leaked, then open-sourced by Bungie. This source was used to produce AlephOne, a unified engine which runs the scenarios for Marathon, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity, as well as any fan-made scenarios. The original support for LAN multiplayer was improved and extended to be Internet-capable. Later still, the Marathon trilogy was made freeware by Bungie, so you can download it legally and play it on modern computers with the AlephOne engine (see below).

Unlike the [[Rights|rights]] to Oni and Myth, the Marathon IP never left Bungie. There has been occasional speculation about a "Marathon 4" one day being developed by Bungie, and even [https://www.neogaf.com/threads/does-bungie-still-plan-to-reboot-marathon.1214773/ a mention of such a project] in the contract Bungie signed with Activision over [[wikipedia:Destiny_(video_game)|Destiny]], but it is difficult to imagine what a modern-day Marathon game would be like, or what could be added to the original story.

:[https://alephone.lhowon.org/ Lhowon.org downloads] (serves the Trilogy, the AlephOne engine, and links to the AlephOne source code)

;Marathon on Bungie.net

:The Marathon games are documented (over-?)extensively on Wikipedia, starting [[wikipedia:Marathon_(computer_game_series)|HERE]], with exhaustive information on gameplay, enemy types, and the storyline.