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

Microsoft’s Nadella says AI needs an ‘emergency brake’ that humans control

Nadella joined other tech moguls and researchers in calling for stronger safeguards and, in some cases, for the pacing of frontier development.

Your Privacy

On this service, we and our vendors use cookies and other tools (“Cookies”) to store and access information on your device, such as device identifiers, IP address, and your browser type.

Your data may be used to save and communicate your privacy choices; ensure security, prevent fraud, and debug our products and services; personalize advertising and content; for advertising and content measurement; to conduct audience research and services development; so we can improve our services and develop new ones; to match and combine offline data with your online activity; and for social features.

We may share this data with select vendors with your consent. You can adjust your choices any time through the “Cookie Preferences” link in the footer of relevant Versant sites or in-app settings.

We will also use other Cookies that are essential or related to our services, including for security and fraud prevention. To learn more about some of our vendors, see the IAB and Google Vendors under each purpose. Visit our Cookie Notice and Privacy Policy to learn more.

These Cookies and SDKs are required for Service functionality, including security and fraud prevention, and to enable any purchasing capabilities. You can set your browser to block these tracking technologies, but some parts of the site may not function properly.

The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.

Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.

Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.

– Use limited data to select advertising 796 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).

– Create profiles for personalised advertising 640 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users.

This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.

– Use profiles to select personalised advertising 643 partners can use this purpose Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

– Create profiles to personalise content 265 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users.

This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.

– Use profiles to select personalised content 238 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.

This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.

– Measure advertising performance 921 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc.

This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.

– Measure content performance 406 partners can use this purpose Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests.

For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.

– Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 583 partners can use this purpose Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which

target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).

– Develop and improve services 689 partners can use this purpose Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.

– Use limited data to select content 181 partners can use this purpose Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).

These Cookies and SDKs are used to collect data about your browsing habits, use of the Services, your preferences, and your interaction with advertisements across platforms and devices for the purpose of delivering targeted advertising content, both on our Services and on third party sites.

Third-party sites and services also use Targeting Cookies to deliver content, including advertisements relevant to your interests on the Services. If you reject these Cookies or SDKs, you will see less relevant advertising.

Data collected under this category through Cookies and SDKs can also be used to select and deliver personalized content, such as news articles and videos.

Technologies

Kremlin Confirms Putin Transmitted Iran’s War Resolution Plan to Trump

The Kremlin says Putin relayed Iran’s proposal for ending the war to Trump, while Trump announced a Russian diesel supply deal that drew sharp criticism from Zelenskyy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin communicated Tehran’s perspective on a potential conclusion to the conflict in Iran to U.S. President Donald Trump, according to Russian state media reports on Saturday.

This disclosure follows Trump’s Friday statement that Russia will provide diesel to global markets amid soaring energy prices driven by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Russia’s Interfax news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that Putin conveyed the message to Trump “in agreement with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian,” per a Google translation.

Additional Russian media accounts indicate Putin spoke with Trump by phone after meeting Pezeshkian on the margins of a summit in Turkmenistan.

Interfax did not detail the specifics of how Iran envisions the war — which erupted on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets — reaching an end.

The White House did not immediately respond to Verum’s emailed request to confirm the reported conversation between Putin and Trump.

Russia supply deal

Trump announced Friday that Russia will deliver more than 4 million tons of diesel to the global market under an arrangement he said he agreed with Putin during a phone call.

Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons immediately after, Trump posted on Truth Social. Moscow will then provide another 3 million tons of diesel contingent on the condition of Russia’s refineries, Trump added.

The Treasury Department temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027 under a general license issued Friday.

Iran has intensified attacks on oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with vessels coming under fire almost daily as Tehran attempts to choke off a rebound in crude exports.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official stated Wednesday that Iran will block all “illicit routes” through Hormuz, according to the Fars News Agency, an outlet considered close to the Guard.

The surge in tanker attacks coincides with crude oil exports from the Middle East rebounding in September to prewar levels, largely because the U.S. military escorted ships through Hormuz along Oman’s coast.

An interim agreement signed in June between the U.S. and Iran to pause hostilities to allow for negotiations quickly collapsed.

‘Gifts to Putin’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately denounced Trump’s diesel deal with Putin. Ukraine’s leader warned that easing sanctions without a commitment from Russia to de-escalate the war will only prolong it.

“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post. “Russia will ‘repay’ the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged.”

Diesel prices have surged worldwide as Ukraine has pounded Russian refineries, forcing Moscow to ban diesel exports to global markets. Iran and its Houthi allies have also attacked refineries in the Middle East, further constraining fuel supplies.

Trump faces mounting political pressure to lower fuel prices ahead of the November midterm elections. Republicans confront competitive races in conservative strongholds like Iowa, where farmers feel the pinch of high diesel prices.

Technologies

AI is Changing How Lawyers Work — and Putting the Billable Hour Under Pressure

AI is reshaping the legal industry by reducing the time needed for routine tasks, challenging the traditional billable hour model, and changing how lawyers learn and practice.

Artificial intelligence is now used by almost 90% of legal professionals in the U.K. and Ireland, and it’s putting one of the profession’s oldest conventions — the billable hour — under the microscope. That’s according to legal software company Clio’s U.K. & Ireland Legal Insights Report 2026.

It found that among firms using AI, almost 80% said they can handle more work without increasing resources, while over 70% said it cut costs by absorbing administrative work once done by support staff.

As a result, AI is challenging some of the assumptions on which the legal profession was built, forcing firms to reevaluate how their lawyers spend their time, how they charge for it and how new lawyers learn the ropes. You can’t charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 secondsNick Rowles-DaviesLexolent Some of the U.K.’s biggest firms are already putting this into practice.

A&O Shearman has worked with legal AI company Harvey to develop artificial intelligence agents for tasks, including reviewing loan agreements and analyzing regulatory filings, which it says can complete in minutes work that previously took several hours. Slaughter and May, meanwhile, has rolled out Harvey across all practice areas this year, including for regulatory research and document analysis.

Billable hour pressure The billable hour is central to the business model of many law firms, but when AI significantly reduces the time lawyers spend sifting through and drafting documents, the economics are no longer so straightforward. “You can’t charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 seconds,” Nick Rowles-Davies, founder and CEO of legal finance fund Lexolent, based in London and Dubai, told CNBC.

About one in five firms that have widely adopted AI report difficulty meeting billable-hour targets, according to Clio’s report. Globally, senior legal leaders expect the share of work charged by the hour to fall from 72% to 44% over the next two to three years, according to a Deloitte survey.

Routine work is the most exposed, Rowles-Davies said. “If you’ve got standard documents and you’re just putting in detail, then clearly that’s an automatic process.” But complex legal work still requires human judgment, he added, particularly when interpreting AI output and determining the right strategy for a client.

Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting betterJoshua LenonClio

AI and workloads

Whether AI efficiencies ultimately make lawyers’ working lives better may depend on what firms do with the time they get back. Clio’s report found that 51% of legal professionals work evenings, but only 32% want to, while 22% work weekends compared with 11% who would choose to.

Joshua Lenon, Clio’s New York-based lawyer-in-residence, believes some lawyers are already seeing the benefits. “Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting better,” Lenon told CNBC, as AI becomes more commonplace.

“People are really looking at these tools and saying, ‘This is making work better.’”