Bungie's Old Marathon Games Are Available For Free On PC

With the announcement of a new Marathon title during the PlayStation Showcase, people are looking back at Bungie's original trilogy, some for the very first time. Since these titles aren't available on Steam, and otherwise might be hard to come across, people are also wondering where they can play the games. Well, around 12 years ago, Bungie actually released the remastered versions of these games online for free.

Dominic Tarason on TwitterPSA: Wonder what Marathon is about now that Bungie are relaunching it?Good news! Bungie made the original Marathon trilogy open-source under a super permissive licence! You can download a modern engine, all three games and multiple full fangames here!https://t.co/vFIlDyQBbg pic.twitter.com/IGE2I0JjCk— Dominic Tarason (@DominicTarason) May 25, 2023Dominic TarasonTwitter

The original Marathon trilogy was remastered by an open-source project known as Aleph One, which added OpenGL shader support, online co-op, online multiplayer, mouse-look, game-pad support, and plug-in support for mods. 

The original games were released in the mid-90s, with Marathon Infinity, actually having the first appearance of Forge, a level creation mode that fans of Halo will be intimately familiar with and immediately recognize. Indeed, people are still making mods and maps for the games, with support continuing despite them previously fading into obscurity in favor of the Halo series. 

The new Marathon title looks to be an entirely multiplayer-focused game and is a player versus player extraction shooter that will release on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S.