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

Blue Origin Rocket Grounded After ‘Mishap’ Destroys Customer Satellite

After failing to deliver its first customer satellite into the correct orbit, the FAA grounds Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket pending an investigation.

Blue Origin‘s New Glenn Mission 3 (NG-3) was supposed to mark another step forward for the company’s long-awaited entry into the commercial space launch market. Instead, the heavy-lift rocket’s third flight ended in a partial failure and, for now, a full stop. The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded the New Glenn vehicle from future missions following a «mishap» during Sunday’s launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida until an investigation into the incident can be completed.

The mission wasn’t a total loss. New Glenn’s reusable first-stage booster performed as expected and landed successfully. However, the upper stage failed at the job that mattered most for the mission: delivering its payload into the correct orbit.

That payload (the BlueBird 7 communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile, Blue Origin’s first commercial launch payload for a customer) was supposed to be deployed into a roughly 285-mile orbit. Instead, it reached only about 95 miles — far too low for the satellite’s boosters to keep it in orbit. BlueBird 7 will now be deorbited and destroyed during reentry.

The issue appears to trace back to the rocket’s upper stage. In a statement Monday, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said «one of the BE-3U engines didn’t produce sufficient thrust» during its second burn, a critical phase that’s needed to raise and circularize the orbit. Without it, the rocket didn’t have the energy to get the satellite where it needed to go.

The consequences of that shortfall begin with the FAA classifying the event as a «mishap,» which sounds innocuous, but automatically triggers a mandatory grounding of the New Glenn vehicle while a full safety review is conducted. Blue Origin will lead the investigation under FAA oversight, working to pinpoint the root cause and outline corrective actions.

Until the agency determines the issue poses no risk to public safety, New Glenn isn’t flying again. How long that process takes is uncertain and can vary wildly. The last time New Glenn was grounded, following a landing failure on its debut mission, it was unable to fly again for months.

The longer the rocket is grounded, the more friction this will apply to Blue Origin’s 2026 and 2027 plans. In the short term, ripples may delay the deployment of Amazon’s already-delayed satellite broadband network, which would rely in part on New Glenn. Further out, the company’s Blue Moon MK1 lander mission’s target may also be affected by how long New Glenn remains sidelined.

Then there’s the reputational hit. This was New Glenn’s first mission carrying a commercial customer payload, which would have been a key milestone for the heavy-lift rocket program. While AST SpaceMobile expects the cost of the satellite to be «recovered under the company’s insurance policy,» this is certainly egg on Blue Origin’s face and an opportunity for competitors like SpaceX to exploit.

AST SpaceMobile said in a statement issued Sunday evening that it expects to continue its plans to expand its satellite network with «an orbital launch every one to two months on average during 2026,» supported by agreements with multiple launch providers.

Blue Origin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 21, #575

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 21, No. 575.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. If you’re struggling with it but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Choosing your team’s future.

Green group hint: Olympic sport.

Blue group hint: Play ball!

Purple group hint: Initials.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: People involved in making a draft pick.

Green group: Pole vault equipment.

Blue group: First words of baseball positions.

Purple group: T.J. ____

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is people involved in making a draft pick. The four answers are coach, GM, owner and scout.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is pole vault equipment. The four answers are crossbar, mat, pole and spikes.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is first words of baseball positions. The four answers are center, designated, first and third.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is T.J. ____. The four answers are Ford, Hockenson, Houshmandzadeh and Watt.

Technologies

Pixel 11 May Revive the Old-School Notification LED With ‘Pixel Glow’

What’s old is new again.

The next Pixel phone may get a feature reminiscent of Nothing’s LED glyphs and old-school Android phones: a notification LED — only more interesting.

What looks to be a new feature called Pixel Glow was reported earlier Monday by 9to5Google. The name was discovered in the latest Android 17 beta 4, which was released on April 16. Pixel Glow is described as using «subtle light and color on the back of your device to inform you of important activity when it’s face down.» In essence, it’s a fancy notification LED.

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

It appears that Pixel Glow will work in certain situations, like when a favorite contact calls. Unsurprisingly, it seems like the feature might also work when interacting with Gemini hands-free.

While 9to5Google says the feature was referenced in previous Android beta and Canary builds under code names, the latest Android 17 gave us an official name for the feature. The progression makes it seem that the feature will debut on the upcoming Pixel 11, which we expect to be announced later this year, a few months after Google I/O in May.

The exact location where the LED array might be placed is anyone’s guess at this point. The first CAD renders that we saw for the standard Pixel 11 showed a very similar design, suggesting that the LEDs could be living in the now all-black camera bar, the «G» logo on the back, or perhaps the feature will be reserved for the Pixel 11 Pro models only.

The Pixel Glow feature will apparently also work on laptops. This cohesion also isn’t surprising, as we already know that Android and ChromeOS will be merged into a single operating system at some point to bring a robust desktop and laptop operating system.