Classic Marathon hits Steam and it’s totally free – you can play the forefather of Halo right now

Now here’s a real blast from the past. Back in the mid-90s, a little-known company called Bungie released Marathon for the Apple Macintosh. To all intents and purposes it was a clone of Doom for the Mac, but it was so much more when you look back over history.

In a series that went on to span three games that, unsurprisingly, went on to become known as the Marathon Trilogy, you could argue that it is one of the most important games, well ever. Bungie as we know went on to develop and make a huge success out of Destiny and Halo so you would be well within your rights to suggest that Marathon is the great-grandfather of those modern-day classics.

You have probably not played Marathon though but you can change all that right now as Bungie has just posted on X that Classic Marathon is on Steam with Marathon 2, and Marathon Infinity to follow. And the best bit? They are all totally free to claim and own.

Today, we're thrilled to announce that the Aleph One community is bringing the original 1994-1996 Marathon Trilogy to Steam starting with Marathon 1.

Thank you to the Marathon community for your support over the years. We couldn't do it without you.

https://t.co/pDtf6VWqwY pic.twitter.com/Z2f0b3hnww

— Bungie (@Bungie) May 10, 2024

It’s been made possible by the Aleph Developers who took the code Bungie made open source in 1999, followed by the assets for the game that was released in 2005, and have worked tirelessly to create an enhanced engine to play the game in.

The post on the Bungie account read: “Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the Aleph One community is bringing the original 1994-1996 Marathon Trilogy to Steam starting with Marathon 1.

Thank you to the Marathon community for your support over the years. We couldn’t do it without you.”

So if you were looking for something to play this weekend that you weren’t expecting, go and get Classic Marathon installed right now.

What is Marathon?

Alien forces have boarded the colony ship UESC Marathon in the Tau Ceti system, in orbit around humanity’s first interstellar colony. The situation is dire, and as a security officer assigned to the Marathon, your duty is to defend the ship and its crew from the alien threat.

This classic 1994 Bungie FPS had a foundational influence on the genre and is now maintained by the fan community. Experience authentic gameplay using the original data files, with optional widescreen HUD support, 3D filtering/perspective, positional audio, and 60+ fps interpolation, just in case the original is too authentic.

Classic Marathon is powered by the Aleph One engine, which is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3.

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