Marathon

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 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.

In a way that is not unusual for Bungie, there are multiple references to Marathon in Oni, documented in the Easter eggs article.

Unlike Oni, Marathon was shipped with multiplayer (albeit LAN-only). Bungie also supported the modding community with helpful information on the file formats; they eventually released their development tools Forge and Anvil alongside Marathon Infinity. Later, the Marathon 2 source code was open-sourced by Bungie. This source was used to produce Aleph One, a unified engine which runs the scenarios for Marathon, Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity, as well as any fan-made scenarios. The original LAN multiplayer mode 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 Aleph One engine (see below).

Unlike the rights to Oni and Myth, the Marathon IP never left Bungie's hands. There has been occasional speculation about a "Marathon 4" one day being developed by Bungie, and even a mention of such a project in the contract Bungie signed with Activision over 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.

Community links

Marathon.Bungie.Org (original home of Marathon fans, now mostly a portal page for other Marathon sites)

Simplici7y (mod repository)

Pfhorums (community forum)

Lhowon.org metaserver (for Internet matchmaking)

Lhowon.org downloads (serves the Trilogy, the Aleph One engine, and links to the Aleph One source code)

Marathon on Bungie.net (archived)

Picture galleries

Marathon on Wikipedia

The Marathon games are documented extensively on Wikipedia, starting HERE, with exhaustive information on gameplay, enemy types, and the storyline.