The Marathon series as a trilogy was released in the 1990s for Apple Macintosh and was a commercial success. The original Marathon series was a solo first-person shooter set in outer space in the future, and your main goal was to eliminate the hordes of aliens to secure the ship named Marathon.  But the rumors suggest that the revival of the game will be different, and it will be a live-service squad-based extraction game. And the gameplay will be fast-paced and revolve around the mission-based extraction from different levels where the players can fully customize their arsenal and load-outs.  The live-service element of the rumored game will be similar to Bungie’s successful franchise, Destiny. The new Marathon will include seasonal events and rewards like you get in Destiny, contributing to a major part of the experience. The game is reportedly in a pre-alpha state and could take some time to see the light of day.

A Little Back Story of Marathon

Marathon is a sci-fi first-person shooter which was released in 1994. Marathon primarily takes place in 2794 aboard the UESC Marathon, a large Earth colony ship constructed from the Martian moon Deimos. The Marathon’s mission is to travel to the Tau Ceti system and build a colony on its fourth planet.  The player’s character is an unnamed security officer assigned to the Marathon. The narrative is presented to the player using messages on computer terminals scattered throughout the game’s levels, the protagonist progresses in the game by killing the hordes of aliens invading the Marathon spaceship at different levels.  The main character has an extensive range of arsenal to choose its primary weapon. The defense mechanism of the game was also appreciable; a holographic shield that protects you but has a limited health bar. Marathon also had a multiplayer deathmatch mode that could accommodate a total of eight players on the local server.  The game was well-received, and it managed to sell over 100,000 copies worldwide before the release of Marathon 2. It is considered a legacy that laid the foundation for future first-person shooters like Halo.

About Bungie

Bungie is an ambitious studio that has worked on several notable projects like Halo 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Destiny 2, their original and latest live-service game. Bungie got its name in the books after working with Microsoft on Halo games, but the basis for those games is the Marathon series with some distinct similarities.  However, Bungie was recently acquired by Sony, and their games became a part of the PlayStation ecosystem except Halo. Therefore, returning to Halo is impossible, while working on their classic original like Marathon is not inevitable.  It was also reported recently that PlayStation has commissioned several live-service Bungie games. Although other than this, no information about the game titles was made public, and those details are still unknown.  However, the rumors are believable to some extent while keeping in view the expertise of Bungie and their previous work with similar games. Still, it will be wise to take these claims and rumors with a grain of salt until official confirmation.  We will keep you posted about any further information about the game. Please let us know your thoughts about this in the comment section below.