The Marathon Trilogy, A Bungie’s Classic For Modern iOS Platform

If you used to be a Mac gamer or you are a pretty hardcore Halo fan, chances are you are familiar with the Marathon trilogy. The games were released and developed by Bungie in the mid-90s only for Mac. They were kind of an answer of Mac to Wolfenstein and Dooms on PC which had achieved big popularity. Different than the run ‘n gun and blast-a-thons of Doom, Marathon is a game which rich lore and very interesting story. There are many puzzles and platforming features in this game besides the obvious FPS elements. The first Marathon was a huge hit which leads to the creation of two next games, Marathon Infinity and  Marathon 2: Durandal. This trilogy is the thing that made the name for Bungie. Later on, it becomes the influencers for the title  Halo: Combat Evolved. In Halo games, you could find many easter eggs call back to the Marathon trilogy. And if broadly speaking we could think that Marathon and Halo are in the same universe.

Of course, we all know the story of Bungie. Microsoft bought them back in 2000 to lead their new game development department. Then they worked in the launch of the new Xbox console which is the home of Halo: Combat Evolved. However, the old Marathon games still live on as a classic title which is still good to play until today. Bungie was also related to an interesting story on iOS. Right before the acquisition of Microsoft, Bungie released the source code of Marathon 2 engine to the public. Therefore, many users that engine and enhanced it up to use in their game like  Aleph One and many other titles in the past 20 years. Also in 2010, just a short time after the release of the iPad original, Daniel Blezek the developer has ported the original Marathon to the iPad as his personal project. He kept on working on that project secretly until February of 2011 when he announced it to the world.

Marathon for iPad

The announcement of Daniel Blezek for a Marathon on iPad has gathered a lot of attention from fans. There are also questions on the legality of a commercial port like Marathon. Would it be legal to release the game on the App Store of Apple using the libraries, open source code, licensing terms? Then the silence after that led to many fans believe that the legal blocks made the game canned. But in reality, it was the opposite. Bungie caught the news of the port for Marathon iPad then have called out for Blezek to give him their official support and blessing. In fact. you can read the interview between Bungie and Blezek back in June 2011 which has some very interesting information on this amazing project. It is no longer available on the website of Bungie but you could still find the transcript on the official website of Marathon mobile. This all results in the launch of the Marathon iPad port as free-2-playback in July of 2011. It has received positive feedback so far.

After that, you could totally download and play Marathon iPad for free. It still has optional in-game purchases. One of those options allows you to download high-resolution assets that were created for the Xbox Live release of the game. These high-res assets will replace the low-res assets in the default version. The in-game market also offers the option to purchase access to the Master Chief mode, which is practically a cheat mode. There is also an IAP to buy many different cosmetic crosshairs. Of course, players can just choose to support the developer who is a crazy lone guy who has spent countless sleepless weekends and nights to bring Marathon to the freaking iPad!

The trilogy port

So the huge success of the iPad port of the original Marathon had led to the development of Marathon 2 for iOS. They launched that port in December of 2011 with Universal support for all iPhones versions. They also extend that support to the original Marathon via a free update. Thus, Marathon Infinity also came to the iOS on may of 2012 which completed the trilogy. All the three games come with different IAP enhancements and options together with many standard and touchscreen control customizations. These games are really great for both newcomers and original fans to the series to experience an amazing FPS adventure.

No more updates or supports

After that, all went on alright in the world of mobile and those fans of Marathons kept on enjoying the game for a couple more years. But then, 6 years ago around the 2013's Spring, they stopped update or support for all the 3 games. Which in turn make the games slowly went outdated because without the updates and supports the game couldn't be played on newer versions of iOS. This was quite sad because this is the exact same path that other FPS port to iOS has also taken, like  Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. However, there is still a bright side. Just a few months ago they have released an unexpected update for all the 3 games in the Marathon trilogy. This added support for the newest version of iOs with all the screen sizes. In fact, I have just found out about these updates even though they were released back in January. These updates have brought me total delight and shock.

I don't have any explanations nor information on what has changed with the development team of iOS Marathon trilogy. But whatever the case I am really excited for these updates. It also seems that they have been keeping the support on-going ever since January. And just last month they have also released a few new fixes and features ( gyroscope aiming and 3D Touch support). Still, all of the games in the trilogy on iOS remain FREE - with IAPs of course. So it does not matter if you are a fan from the original game back in the '90s, love the game from the 2011 iOs ports, or a newcomer to the whole series you should give Marathon trilogy a try and download the game on iOS then dive in the world of classic FPS experience.