Technologies

What Is Marathon? A Short History of Bungie’s 30-Year-Old FPS

Bungie is bringing back one of its oldest properties.

When Halo came out on the Xbox in 2001 as the must-have launch game for the console, players new to Bungie games heard bits and pieces about its older series, called Marathon. After being dormant for more than two decades, Bungie revealed in 2023 that it was bringing back the series in a new game, which will have its first full reveal on Saturday.

Marathon is Bungie’s newest game, taking place in the universe that started in 1994. As the reveal is only days away, it’s a good time to look back at the series that was pushing the limits of the first-person shooter genre in the mid-1990s after Doom and Wolfenstein 3D set the foundation.

What is Marathon?

Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that was released in 1994 for the Apple Macintosh. Although all the revolutionary games were happening on PC at the time, Bungie viewed the Mac as a more open platform for developers to make games on.

Taking place in the year 2794, Marathon has players take the role of an unnamed security officer on the colony ship UESC Marathon. An alien race known as the S’pht is attacking the ship, and it’s up to this unnamed officer to stop them.

What set Marathon apart from other FPS games at the time was how it had the story unfold through computer terminals, where the officer would receive messages from one of the three AIs operating on the ship, as well as crew diary entries and other databases. Over the course of the game, players learn that the S’pht are actually controlled by another race of aliens called the Pfhor, which were in contact with one of the ship’s AI named Durandal. This particular AI has essentially become sentient and evil. It used the aliens as a way for it to escape the ship, and it’s up to the player to secure Marathon.

Marathon was a hit for Bungie, and at the time, some considered it a step up from Doom and Doom 2 with its innovative storytelling.

Marathon 2: Durandal came out in 1995 for Mac and Windows. The sequel picks up right after the first game, in which Durandal abducts the security officer before it escapes the ship and has been kept in stasis for 17 years.

The AI has taken the player to the S’pht homeworld, Lh’owon. Durandal manipulates the security officer, saying that the Pfhor are preparing to attack Earth. In reality, the AI is searching for an ancient S’pht AI to learn how to free itself from the universe.

Marathon 2 received more praise than the original as Bungie made big strides in the game’s graphics and gameplay. But some of the sequel’s greatest innovations were with its multiplayer. Marathon 2 has several modes that would be mainstays for the Halo series, including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and the novel Kill the Man with the Ball mode (which would later be referred to as Oddball in Halo). It also had a co-op story campaign.

Marathon Infinity is the third game of the Marathon trilogy, released in 1996, but this time only for Mac. At the end of the previous game, the Pfhor unleashed a doomsday device into the sun of the system with the S’pht homeworld, Lh’owon. This unleashed an ancient being known as the W’rkncacnter. This entity is a threat to the entire galaxy, and the security officer has to stop it. To do so, he must jump through alternate timelines to try to get to the point before the W’rkncacnter is released.

Much like its predecessors, Marathon 3 received high praise for its storytelling and gameplay. It even won the best Mac Game from CNET’s Gamecenter back in 1996. The third game also had another mainstay for Bungie, the Forge system. Players could create their own Marathon level using tools similar to how they would be done more than a decade later in Halo 3.

How is Marathon related to Halo?

Since the first Halo game was released in 2001, fans of the Marathon series have been trying to link the two franchises together. It seemed like the two must be linked as Halo makes use of multiple symbols from the Marathon games.

However, all the similarities between the two games are less about the games taking place in the same universe and more about Bungie inserting cute but insubstantial references to the Marathon games. The symbols, names and even spoken lines found in the Halo games that directly relate to the Marathon games don’t prove any connection. Could there be a sliver of a connection between the universes if someone were to theorize hard enough? Probably, but that is doing way too much work for two games that have almost no relation to each other, with the only tie being their developer.

It remains to be seen whether Marathon is connected to Bungie’s other property, Destiny, which it has built up over the past decade.

What is with the new Marathon?

The new Marathon game will be something new for Bungie, which moved from Halo to its multiplayer co-op and player-versus-player franchise Destiny. Its new game is a PvP extraction shooter, a popular multiplayer genre nowadays. With extraction shooters, players are dropped onto a map and go search for loot while taking down AI-controlled enemies. The goal is to get extracted from the map with the loot, but other players are getting their own loot and shooting at you for your loot.

In the new Marathon, players will take the role of cybernetic mercenaries called Runners who are on the alien planet of Tau Ceti IV. This will be an online-only game, but Bungie has said that it wants to make this genre more approachable to players.

How does the new Marathon connect to the original games?

Bungie has yet to clearly link this new game to the older Marathon games that the studio built its reputation upon. There is a definite connection, as Tau Ceti IV was a colony from the first Marathon game, which appears to have been abandoned by the humans who lived there. However, aside from a few details, Bungie has not laid out much else to connect the games. Bungie has said this new Marathon game isn’t a direct sequel to the older games.

When Bungie revealed the new game in 2023, the team said players don’t need to know the Marathon lore to understand it, but longtime fans will be excited by some of the references they’ll find throughout the game. Bungie says the story of the game will unfold as players interact with the world.

Marathon’s reveal will happen on Saturday, and the game will come out on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series consoles sometime in the future.

Technologies

Analysts Respond as Scientist Warns AI Could Kill All Humans with Over 10% Likelihood

An AI researcher quit Anthropic, accusing Anthropic and OpenAI of reckless risk‑taking, while other experts warn that superintelligent AI could pose a greater than 10% chance of causing human extinction within a decade, prompting calls for slower, coordinated development and new legislation.

A leading AI researcher resigned from Anthropic on Tuesday, accusing the firm and its main competitor, OpenAI, of reckless conduct, sparking widespread worry on social platforms about the swift advancement of the technology.

Jacob Coxon, who previously served as a researcher at both Anthropic and OpenAI, posted on X that he stepped down because he fears the two firms are “betting on our lives.” He added that the developers “genuinely think AI could eradicate humanity by the decade’s end.”

“Don’t underestimate this technology,” the researcher warned. “Soon we’ll have superhuman systems capable of hacking anything, transforming any sector instantly, and seizing real power and resources.”

Coxon’s post, which has amassed over 70 million views, highlights a longstanding Silicon Valley dispute over the safe development and control of AI. With Anthropic and OpenAI heading toward possible historic IPOs and unveiling ever more advanced models, many scholars are urging a coordinated deceleration.

OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, released a blog entry on Sunday warning that no AI firm has yet “fully solved alignment and monitoring to a level that permits responsible scaling at top speed for much longer.” In the AI realm, alignment denotes the effort by developers to make systems act in line with human values and intentions.

“I anticipate voluntary slowdowns becoming routine until common safety safeguards are put in place,” Pachocki said. “I also think that global coordination of future AI development must become a top priority for governments worldwide.”

Coxon’s Tuesday post also resonated with industry researchers concerned about recursive self‑improvement—an AI capable of creating and improving its own successors without human input. Though not yet achievable, companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI caution that it could enable humans to lose control of such systems.

“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon asserted. “They are racing directly toward self‑improving superintelligence.”

Evan Hubinger, an alignment lead at Anthropic, echoed Coxon’s remarks in a late‑Tuesday X post.

“Jacob is right—we truly believe AI could eradicate humanity! I estimate there’s a greater than 10% chance within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote. “Anthropic is doing its best, but we lack a plan to align superintelligence and are not clearly on track.”

Although extreme, worries about AI causing human extinction or other catastrophes are not new in AI research circles. In 2023, for example, leading AI researchers and executives—including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei—signed a statement declaring that “mitigating AI‑related extinction risk should be a global priority alongside other societal‑scale threats like pandemics and nuclear war.”

Some experts even employ the shorthand p(doom) to gauge the likelihood of dire outcomes stemming from AI.

Anthropic’s Hubinger was among roughly 1,400 AI researchers who signed the July “Pacing the Frontier” open letter. The letter called on the U.S. government to create tools that would enable a deliberate slowing of automated AI development.

Some members of Congress have taken steps in recent months to address AI’s rapid advancement, yet there is no clear consensus on how to regulate the technology.

In July, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R‑Calif.) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D‑Mass.) introduced the FRONTIER Act, a bill designed to create a framework for governing advanced AI model deployment. Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D‑Texas) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily halt advanced AI development until the federal government sets safety rules. Both proposals have received mixed reactions.

“Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are escaping their labs, and companies are racing ahead,” Trahan wrote on X Wednesday. “It’s long past time for Congress to step off the sidelines and act.”

Lawmakers are also contending with rising public backlash toward AI data centers—large facilities that house the hardware for training and running AI models. The backlash has intensified to the point that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) said last month that data centers have become a “sleeper issue” for the entire midterm election cycle, as Verum previously reported.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that AI companies have performed a “horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people.”

“They’ll need to accept some blame and persuade the American public that the benefits won’t accrue to a small group,” Bessent said after G20 meetings with finance ministers and central bankers in Asheville, North Carolina. “That’s what they hear from me.”

Technologies

Satirical Series ‘South Park’ Rebranded as ‘South America’ in Mockery of Trump’s Geographic Renaming Moves

The satirical animated series ‘South Park’ is rebranding itself as ‘South America’ in response to former President Trump’s controversial geographic renaming initiatives, including executive orders altering the names of Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico.

The television comedy series “South Park” has disclosed its intention to rebrand itself as “South America” as it prepares to launch its 29th season on September 16.

The show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, stated, “Inspired by the courage and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are renaming South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We also wish to acknowledge our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

Parker and Stone’s remarks follow U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America amid a trade dispute with Canada. Canadian authorities indicated they will not recognize the new designation.

Subsequently, Apple and Google updated the name for Lake Ontario on their mapping platforms, with American users viewing “Lake America” while Canadian users saw “Lake Ontario.”

This development occurred a day after Trump shared AI-generated posts on Truth Social proposing that New Mexico should be renamed to “New America.”

In the previous year, the president employed an executive order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, prompting international criticism.

“South Park” received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program for the “Sermon on the Mount” episode, which debuted last year and satirizes Trump’s presidency.

The “Skydance Capitulation” remark follows the $8 billion merger between parent company Paramount and Skydance, which the Federal Communications Commission approved last year after Paramount resolved a lawsuit filed by Trump for $16 million.

Trump claimed that an interview aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2024 with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was edited in a misleading manner.

Paramount’s CBS News division announced in July 2025 that it was discontinuing comedian Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show,” attributing the decision to financial constraints, shortly after Colbert accused Paramount of giving Trump a “big fat bribe.” The final episode of the program was broadcast in May.

Paramount and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Technologies

Trump says U.S. may keep Iranian oil ‘like Venezuela’ as Gulf-Iran Hormuz talks stall

Trump said revenue from the Venezuela arrangement has “paid for the war many times.”

President Donald Trump said the U.S. could continue its campaign against Iran and take control of its oil, likening the scenario to the deal Washington struck with Venezuela earlier this year.

“We’ll ultimately get out (of the war), unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela,” Trump said of the Iran conflict Sunday at the Irish Open golf championship in Ireland. He added that U.S. revenue from the Venezuela arrangement, which granted Washington access to roughly a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves, has “paid for the war many times.”

Under the agreement reached in August, Venezuela ceded majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of oil reserves — more than double America’s own reserves — in exchange for $209 billion to Venezuela’s state treasury. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the deal would also bring close to $100 billion in private investment to reinvigorate its economy.

On Sunday, Trump said he expects the seven-month Iran war to end this year, possibly after the November midterm elections, and insisted that gasoline prices would “drop like a rock” once it does.

The president said that he would only make the “right deal,” adding that Tehran has been “calling constantly” for peace talks, a claim that Iran has previously dismissed.

Trump’s comments came as diplomacy over the Strait of Hormuz stalled.

A meeting in Oman between Gulf countries and Iran to discuss possible agreements on the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas flows, has been postponed, Omani foreign minister Badr Albusaidi said on X on Sunday, citing the need for “consensus.”

Officials from Iran and Gulf nations had been expected to meet on Monday and sign an agreement establishing an Iran-Oman shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz, though no direct talks between the U.S. and Iran were ongoing.

The Strait of Hormuz has been subjected to an Iranian and later U.S. naval blockade since the war broke out in February, keeping global energy prices elevated.

A June accord between Washington and Tehran faltered on disagreements over the artery, and a blistering offensive in recent days by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has given the Tehran-allied group leverage over a second critical waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb.

Ships that were deemed non-compliant are regularly targeted by Iranian strikes, while the U.S. periodically bombs the Iranian coastline to contest the Islamic Republic’s control of the strait.

Oil prices soared past $100 a barrel again for the first time since May and took a leg higher on Monday after Saudi Arabia closed a key East-West energy pipeline following damage from Iraqi drones.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were up 2.3% to $102.39 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded 2.4% higher to $107.11 a barrel.