Marathon (video game)

Marathon
Purple-colored minimalistic crest against a star field background
CD sleeve artwork featuring the ship's crest of the UESC Marathon, the game's setting
Developer(s)Bungie (Mac, Pippin)
Soli Deo Gloria (iOS)
Publisher(s)Bungie (Mac)
Bandai (Pippin)
Soli Deo Gloria (iOS)
Designer(s)
Programmer(s)Jason Jones
Composer(s)Alex Seropian
SeriesMarathon Trilogy
Platform(s)
ReleaseMacintosh
December 21, 1994
Pippin
1996
iOS
July 7, 2011
Windows,macOS
May 11, 2024[1]
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Marathon is a first-person shooter video game developed and published by Bungie, and released in December 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. The game takes place several centuries into the future in outer space and sets the player as a security officer attempting to stop an alien invasion aboard a colony ship named the Marathon.

Derived from the engine created for Pathways into Darkness from 1993, Marathon is the first game in a series of three games collectively known as the Marathon Trilogy, which also includes its two sequels, Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity, released in 1995 and 1996 respectively. In 1996, Bungie released Super Marathon, a port of Marathon and Marathon 2 to the short-lived Apple Bandai Pippin video game console.[2]

Bungie released the source code of Marathon 2 in 1999, which enabled the development of an open-source enhanced version of the Marathon 2 engine called Aleph One. The game's assets were released by Bungie as freeware in 2005.

  1. ^ n/a, n/a (May 10, 2024). "Classic Marathon on Stam". store.steampowered.com/. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
  2. ^ Rosenberg, Alexander M. (August 3, 1998). "Marathon's Story". marathon.bungie.org.