After 30 years, the beloved Bungie FPS that paved the way for Halo is now on Steam
Marathon ain't just an upcoming extraction shooter
Marathon, the classic FPS from Bungie that paved the way for Halo, is now on Steam thanks to members of the community, and its two sequels are set to follow soon.
"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," Bungie says on Twitter. "Thank you to the Marathon community for your support over the years. We couldn't do it without you." The original Marathon is already live on Steam, and both Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity have store pages ready to go. All three games are set to be free.
The Marathon trilogy was essentially Bungie's answer to Doom - just developed for Mac computers and featuring a much more intricate narrative. Lore details established in Marathon continued to be referenced in future Bungie games ranging from Halo to Destiny, and the franchise is currently being rebooted with the simply titled Marathon, a PvP extraction shooter that debuted at last year's PlayStation Showcase.
Bungie actually released the whole Marathon trilogy as freeware decades ago, and a group of community developers has been building the Aleph One engine to keep the games alive for ages. If you're not particular about playing your games on Steam, you can grab the entire trilogy right now for free on the Aleph One website. An upgraded port of Marathon 2 was also released on Xbox 360, and this version remains playable on modern Xbox consoles.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.
Stalker 2 boss thought bugs would bother y'all more and expected "much less success," still wants to fix things until it's a game "90% of people loved"
Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says Stalker 2 had to "come out the oven" eventually, even if it did launch with a lot of bugs: "It's just how it goes"