The entire original Marathon trilogy is now free on Steam, but Bungie is still quiet about the reboot

Earlier this year, Bungie's 1990s sci-fi shooter Marathon came to Steam for free. And in July, Marathon 2 arrived. But this series is a trilogy. Where's the third? I want the third– oh, it's here now. Yesterday, the final game, Marathon Infinity, leaked onto the store, offering a nifty little package for fans of retro shooters. But it's also a reminder that we haven't seen much of Bungie's upcoming reboot.

Finally, Infinity came right after the second game, and came out in 1996, at a time when sequels were still released a year apart. It adds bits and pieces to an ongoing story about warring alien factions and a rebellious AI. If you squint, you can see that Bungie has been rewriting the same sci-fi story for decades, the broad strokes of its games rhyming in noticeable ways even as the mechanics evolve. (For a good breakdown of Marathon as a shooter and its place in FPS history, I recommend this video from Errant Signal.)

It’s also worth noting that the entire Marathon set has been freely available for decades thanks to the work of the developers of the Aleph One port, an open-source project that keeps these old FPS games alive. Now, with Bungie’s blessing, they’ve brought the entire trilogy to Valve’s popular platform for the first time.

Like its predecessors, Marathon Infinity is listed as “Classic Marathon Infinity” on Steam – the “classic” was undoubtedly added to differentiate it from the upcoming reboot-loot-shooter that we know very little about. It appears to be a PvP shooter with a loose connection to the classic Marathon lore. “It's not a direct sequel to the originals, but it's definitely something that belongs in the same universe,” said game director Christopher Barrett when it was revealed last year.

Barrett was replaced by former Valorant director Joe Ziegler as a result of a management shakeup at the studio. Bungie has also suffered at least two rounds of significant layoffs since the game was announced, and that’s likely to have an impact on development. According to a report from Bloomberg , the majority of the studio’s remaining team is working on Marathon, and the game isn’t expected to be released until 2025 at the earliest. Even that estimate may be optimistic, considering we still haven’t seen a glimpse of what the game actually looks like (just a fancy trailer).

For now, at least we have the old Marathon. I played the first Marathon ten years after its release, in an impatient escape while waiting for Halo 2 to come out. I had a good time reading the ship logs and directives of a jittery AI and dissecting tall aliens. It was basically Doom with a bit of System Shock story (there must be something in the water in 1994), and I remember being impressed that a ten-year-old FPS could hold my attention for so long.

December of this year will mark Marathon's 30th birthday. If you want to see if it's still relevant, head over now. And if you hate Steam, don't worry, all three games are still available as Aleph One.

Leave a Comment