Classic Marathon is free on Steam

thesixthaxis.com:

Bungie’s 1994 Classic Marathon is now free to download from Steam, thanks to the fan development team Aleph One Developers. Marathon released all the way back in 1994, an early compatriot to Doom that was a Mac exclusive before spreading to PC with its sequel. It had a story focused on AI, time travel, and aliens, which laid the influential groundwork for Bungie’s Halo series.

The Steam description for Classic Marathon says, “Alien forces have boarded the colony ship UESC Marathon in the Tau Ceti system, in orbit around humanity’s first interstellar colony. The situation is dire, and as a security officer assigned to the Marathon, your duty is to defend the ship and its crew from the alien threat.

This classic 1994 Bungie™ FPS had a foundational influence on the genre, and is now maintained by the fan community. Experience authentic game play using the original data files, with optional widescreen HUD support, 3D filtering/perspective, positional audio, and 60+ fps interpolation, just in case the original is too authentic. Classic Marathon is powered by the Aleph One engine, which is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3.”

Classic Marathon is the first game of the Marathon trilogy to now be available on Steam. Both Classic Marathon 2 and Classic Marathon Infinity have Steam pages too, but are not yet available. Bungie announced a PvP-only Marathon reboot for PS5, Xbox Series and PC, last year. At the time of the announcement Game Director Christopher Barrett said, “Marathon is designed from the start as a PvP-focused game and won’t have a single-player campaign. Instead, with the PvP experience as our foundation, we’re creating opportunities for player-driven stories to unfold, stories that are integrated with the overarching game narrative. We’re building a world full of persistent, evolving zones, where players create their own journey with every run they take. That might mean an unforgettable firefight against another crew