While we wait on the other side of "Destiny 2's" "The Final Shape" for a reboot of "Marathon's" highly saturated extraction shooter, those who never played the 1994 Mac original will soon have another chance. Classic Marathon is coming to Steam, witness the roots of Bungie's obsession with neurotic AI, behold the mythical origins of SPNKR, and if you're a fan of the original, you're in for a real treat. Oh yeah, you can even keep that chunky UI; new to Steam, this "Marathon," along with the other "Marathon" trilogy, has been playable in its current rig for years thanks to the efforts of the Aleph One development team. Aleph One, a community-controlled revival effort, is an open source engine built for the current system from the source code of Marathon 2, which Bungie made freely available before its 1999 acquisition of Microsoft. on Steam. The Classic Marathon release will allow players to play a nearly faithful recreation of the original Marathon experience. However, if you want to revisit FPS classics while keeping a modern feel, several modernization options are included, such as interpolated 60+ fps and widescreen HUD support. We'll forgive you if you don't find the asymmetrical HUD as tolerable as people did 30 years ago.

Despite being a pure community project, Bungie has given it an enthusiastic hand-off blessing. When asked for comment, Bungie said, "Yeah, this is real and it's going to be free. We are very supportive of the Marathon community and Aleph One's dedication to porting the original Marathon to PC, Linux and Mac and enabling cross-platform play in multiplayer. This is a true tribute to the original game!" Interestingly, while the Steam listing includes cross-platform multiplayer, Aleph One developers stated in the Marathon subreddit thread that they are only promising Windows support in the Steam release. This means that the Steam release of Classic Marathon will only be for Windows, but will connect with Mac and Linux players through Aleph One's website. as to when Classic Marathon will be released on Steam. still unknown, but it is likely to be the same as the "Marathon" reboot, which is scheduled for release in 2025. Nevertheless, if you're itching to fight Pfhor, the entire Marathon trilogy is playable and available for free download from the Aleph One engine website. There is also a pile of community-made scenarios that are friendly to Marathon lore, some called "Mararthon": some called "Yuge". Explore at your own risk.