What you need to know
- Bungie is reviving its Marathon IP, which was originally released in 1994 for Apple’s Macintosh PCs.
- The Marathon revival will be set in the same universe but is not a direct sequel, according to the game’s director.
- Marathon follows through with Bungie’s desire to remain multiplatform following their acquisition by Sony.
- The game will release on Xbox and PC as well as PlayStation, but does not currently have a release date.
Bungie is breaking their studio streak of only releasing one game at a time following the announcement of the revival of their first-person shooter Marathon. Even better, it’s coming to Xbox, Windows PC, and PlayStation with full support for cross-play and cross-save. Bungie was acquired by Sony in 2022 in a $3.6 billion dollar deal. When the acquisition was announced, Bungie committed to continue producing multiplatform content both for the life of Destiny 2 and for future releases.
Originally released for Apple’s Macintosh PCs back in the olden days of 1994, Marathon was one of the first shooters that gave players the freedom to control the camera and free look using a mouse. The original games had the player serve as a security guard who was protecting a ship from an alien invasion. Marathon’s director, Christopher Barrett, explains on the Playstation Blog announcement of the game that this latest iteration of Marathon will not be a direct sequel of any of the original games.
We have a tremendous amount of respect for the original Marathon games and, from the very start, we’ve wanted to honor that, especially the mythology, story, and themes of the world. At the same time, our vision for this game is something new. It’s not a direct sequel to the originals, but something that certainly belongs in the same universe and that feels like a Bungie game.
Christopher Barrett, ‘Marathon’ Director
On the website for Marathon, a synopsis from Bungie reveals that 30,000 people have disappeared without a trace from a lost colony of Tau Ceti IV and that the player, as a runner in the year of 2850, will be tasked with exploring this massive ghost ship that is emitting signals indicating the existence of artifacts, dormant AI, and the possibility of fame and riches.
Marathon does not yet have a release date, but it may very well join the list of best Xbox games when it does finally release, given Bungie’s history of crafting excellent first-person shooters.