Bungie is almost ready to bring the Marathon franchise back to the world with its brand-new take on the IP, which is set to release this September. With the first Alpha in full swing, fans across the globe are getting to take their first steps on Tau Ceti IV and discover its mysteries.
When I finally get the chance to play (the first test is only for North America), I'll be revisiting a classic franchise that shaped my formative years as a gamer.
The original Marathon was first released in 1994, when a fresh-faced Alister had never played a PC game in his life. Carefree and eager (and without an option as you will soon find out), the young scamp booted up his family Mac with a familiar 'DUNG' and started the game that would take up the rest of the Summer for him.
So allow me to shift from speaking in third person and tell you the tale of my relationship with the Marathon Trilogy and why I think the new one looks absolutely brilliant.
In the early 1990s, I didn't have a Windows PC. I was a console gamer through and through, but not owning a PC meant I missed out on many of the games my friends enjoyed at the time on their family computers.
Instead, we had an Apple Mac.
The old Macintosh Performa 630 rested in the corner of our family room, untouched unless we had a school project to write up or my dad was working. Then one day, my brother beat me at NHL 94, and after he removed the Genesis controller from around his head, where I had thrown it, my mom swiftly took the console out of my room for the weekend. My brother never really liked games after that, but I digress.
Forced to choose between going outside and playing (no thanks) or spending time on the Mac, I chose option B.
Flipping through my dad's CD-ROM folder, I found a section with disks I hadn't seen before, one of which was titled Marathon. Firing it into the disk tray, I load up the game and fall in love.
I had never played a first-person shooter before, and graduating from the Master System to the Genesis had only recently exposed me to a few titles outside of Streets of Rage, NHL 94, and Sonic the Hedgehog. This was a revelation!
Rushing through the weird, alien-like maps, blasting away at the odd and wonderful alien hordes as my story progressed via terminals in the game was an amazing experience for me at the time. I never played another game that Summer on my Sega.
I wasn't 100% sure what was going on with the story, but thanks to the gameplay, Bungie had just earned a customer for life.
Fast forward to the present day, and there isn't a Marathon/Halo/Destiny title by Bungie that I haven't picked up and tried to be good at. I loved my time with Master Chief in Halo. I was there from day one for the Destiny Alpha and Beta, and here I am, eagerly awaiting to get my hands on the new iteration of the franchise that started it all for me.
However, it seems that many do not share the same eagerness that I do. A quick search of the game on social media will flood your feed with people telling you why you shouldn't like the game. I cannot wait for them all to go silent this September.
Could I be wrong with my anticipation? Absolutely. This could be true for any new title or fresh take on a long-dormant IP, but I have a feeling about this one. See, I didn't enjoy Destiny 2 at launch. In fact, I only recently picked it up again to give it a try after the Marathon reveal. After hundreds of hours across Halo and the original Destiny, something about D2 did not resonate until now. I fell in love with Destiny 2 for the first time in 2025. And that's where I am going with this.
Bungie doesn't often miss.
See, they work on things, they take feedback and adapt (mostly) to create products for those who may say that it sucks, but will be sitting with playtime countable in days. And those fans absolutely have a right to complain. Same as I have the right to be excited, and so do you.
Marathon 2025 is an extraction shooter with a unique aesthetic that sets it apart from the overcrowded brown-paletted shooter marketplace. Does that mean I wouldn't have loved a Doom 2016-style reboot for Marathon? No, that would have been amazing, but even getting the chance to play in the Marathon universe again excites me.
A slower-paced style that will alienate the sweatiest COD players is precisely what I need right now. Objectives and carefully picking loadouts that can be lost in an instant make for a thrilling, nerve-racking match every time you load into the game. I don't need a good KD ratio; I need a good mission to focus on while looting whatever I can and getting out of dodge!
The other thing that appeals to me is that Bungie is looking to tap into the extraction shooter genre, which is relatively underrepresented, especially on console. Tarkov is the most famous and popular extraction shooter, but it is rather hardcore and only available on PC. Marathon could be the one to help extraction shooters break out into the mainstream and eventually overtake Battle Royale titles.
Am I a little biased due to nostalgia? Sure. But I have this feeling that just like Fortnite did to PUBG on the Battle Royale scene, Marathon could replicate in the extraction shooter arena. Will I love the game come September, or will this become Bungie's first actual failure? We will see, but for this long-time fan, I genuinely believe that Marathon is going to be the title that puts extraction shooters on the map.