X-Box’s Halo wasn’t the first hit by creators
Before X-Box Halo’s Master Chief came along, blasting the Covenant left and right, there was Durandal, the Pfhor and the Marathon.
Contrary to popular belief, Halo was not the first popular game created by the software company Bungie. It was not even their first series. The first-person shooter (FPS) Marathon, released only for the Macintosh system, was an underground hit. It came out in 1994 along with Doom and Quake as one of the very first FPS computer games.
According to Marathon’s Story Web site at marathon.bungie.org/story, Marathon pioneered several traits in games that are used commonly today, such as reloadable weapons, dual-wielded weapons and allied non-player characters (NPCs). What also separated Marathon from its contemporaries was that it had an interactive, involved storyline.
The game starts on a huge colony spaceship called the Marathon, which is being attacked. Its attackers are alien slavers called the Pfhor and you are a security officer, one of the only ones able to resist the alien forces. Assisting you in the battle are two AI characters, named Leela and Durandal. Leela is a helpful, friendly computer, who is just as resistant to the attack as you are. Durandal turns out to have a case of Rampancy, which means that by computer standards, he is dangerously insane.
Marathon was incredibly popular among Macintosh gamers and prompted two sequels, Durandal and Infinity. The storyline deepened as the trilogy continued,and it inspired a lot of attention even after the trilogy had ended. Fans, using Marathon’s engine, have created countless scenarios and modifications of the original game. It has been converted to a PC-friendly version called Aleph One. Even separate engines, such as that of Unreal Tournament, have been used to remake the original Marathon.
“Marathon just permanently impressed on me what a first person shooter should be all about,” said Nic Munroe, who created the Marathon mod for Unreal Tournament. “The novel-like storyline kept me immersed in the single player when other FPS games would have just become repetitive trigger pulling.”
As Halo’s predecessor, Marathon draws a lot of parallels to its more recent and more popular counterpart. Halo was actually meant to be a prequel to Marathon, but now takes place in a separate universe, according to Bungie’s Web site.
The main characters are quite similar; the security officer in Marathon turns out to be a cyborg clad in Mark IV Mjolnir armor, just like Master Chief.
Durandal and Cortana, the influential AIs in both games, are both linked to European mythology and fantasy as the names of powerful swords, according to the Marathon Story Web site.
Both Halo and Marathon reference a mysterious race of beings who vanished from the galaxy in ancient times. In Halo they are called the Forerunners and in Marathon they are called the Jjaro.
In the Halo 2 bonus disc, which contains deleted scenes from the game, the prophets are showing The Arbiter, a scroll that contains the different aliens who make up the Covenant. Among these species are the normal ones, like Grunts and Hunters, but also included, there are Marathon aliens called Hulks.
There are countless websites with information, artwork, scenarios and writings concerning Marathon. The most extensive of these is the Marathon Story page, with over 100 megabytes of text exploring and delving into Marathon’s storyline. This can be found at marathon.bungie.org/story. A collection of artwork inspired by Marathon is at homepage.mac.com/anaphiel/Artwork/PhotoAlbum33.html, and fanfiction can be found at marathon.bungie.org/maraf.
Despite its age, fans still produce Marathon mods and scenarios, along with artwork, fiction and an unprecedented devotion.
“With [Marathon and Halo], we wanted to make the definitive game of conflict between the human race and an alien civilization,” said Nathan Bitner, Halo’s designer. “One of the things that was most rewarding about the Marathon series was the way that fans pored over the details of the story, analyzing and debating it, and eventually expanding it beyond what we originally had written.”
-maripark@cc.usu.edu