I expected Marathon<\/em> to be a relatively straightforward sci-fi extraction shooter. You play as a cybernetic Runner \u2014 a disembodied consciousness implanted into a disposable shell \u2014 investigating the ruins of an abandoned human colony on Tau Ceti IV. Each run sees you competing with other teams to collect loot and fight off UESC security robots before exfiltrating offworld, or dying and starting the cycle again. It\u2019s a satisfying gameplay loop that, like other extraction shooters and even battle royales, doesn\u2019t necessarily need deep lore to support it. But if the original Marathon trilogy from the 1990s \u2014 and numerous hints developer Bungie has dropped \u2014 are any indication, the new game may introduce something much weirder than rogue robots: alien civilizations, ancient precursor technology, and even primordial entities capable of breaking the laws of physics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At a glance, the original Marathon<\/em> from 1994 looks like a sci-fi Doom<\/em> clone set aboard a colony ship in space. But the alien mysteries are there right from the jump. You play a security officer aboard the Marathon colony ship fighting a race of alien slavers called the Pfhor. Over the course of the trilogy, however, Bungie gradually revealed a much stranger sci-fi universe lurking behind the scenes. Among the races enslaved by the Pfhor are the S\u2019pht, essentially brains carried by floating cybernetic bodies \u2014 and they\u2019ve already been shown in the new game.<\/p>\n Toward the end of the eight-minute \u201cIn Death We\u2019ve Just Begun\u201d cinematic released on March 3, a trio of runners see a glowing green light in a dark corridor that fires off an energy blast. A few moments later, a similar figure levitates at the mouth of a cave with tendrils and a red cape swirling around it. In one of the final scenes, a Runner is looting some kind of storage locker and finds what looks like a human-constructed S\u2019pht doll.<\/p>\n Even Bungie\u2019s official roadmap hints players will face more than just UESC robots. As part of season 1, players will \u201cdiscover a way aboard the derelict UESC Marathon ship hanging above,\u201d and doing so will unlock the fourth zone, Cryo Archive. \u201cPrepare your mind and shell to take on this end-game zone on the Marathon ship, where you\u2019ll solve security puzzles, unseal frozen vaults, and come face-to-face with an entity even the UESC fears,\u201d the post reads. That \u201centity\u201d is likely the S\u2019pht featured in the cinematic.<\/p>\n Season 2, called Nightfall, will also feature a version of the Dire Marsh zone set at night, \u201cwhere you\u2019ll fight to survive when the lights go out, UESC reinforcements flood in, and the a~~~~~%^&*()_+{}:”?~~~.\u201d That odd redaction is weird and creepy, to say the least. There\u2019s also the obvious we haven\u2019t even touched upon here yet: what happened to the 30,000 humans living in the Tau Ceti IV colony? At least one S\u2019pht is being presented here as a sort of season 1 endgame raid boss, but there have to be cosmic forces even more powerful at play to explain what\u2019s at the heart of the game\u2019s core mystery. And if the original Marathon<\/em> trilogy is any guide, it\u2019ll be full-on cosmic horror.<\/p>\n The deeper you dig into Marathon lore, the stranger it gets: rogue artificial intelligences, precursor civilizations with technology so advanced it borders on magic, fractured timelines, and primordial entities capable of warping reality itself.<\/p>\n Renowned Destiny<\/em> historian and content creator Byf \u2014 who once produced a 10-hour video breakdown of Destiny<\/em>\u2019s entire lore \u2014 released a new video on March 5 titled \u201cThe God-like Entities of Marathon’s Universe.\u201d In it, he explores the deeper layers of the original trilogy\u2019s mythology and Bungie’s Pathways into Darkness<\/em> (1993), including the ancient Jjaro civilization.<\/p>\n The Jjaro were a precursor alien species that existed millions of years ago, and they had technology that could warp time and space. Their advanced cybernetics were also used to create the S\u2019pht (the red-cloaked species shown in recent trailers), and it\u2019s at least implied in the original Marathon<\/em> trilogy that mankind may have adopted some of that tech to enhance its android technology \u2014 which could have been used in the creation of Runner shells.<\/p>\n But the creepiest layer of Marathon<\/em>\u2019s mythology involves entities called the W\u2019rkncacnter \u2014 primordial forces of chaos so dangerous they were imprisoned inside stars, black holes, and only occasionally in planets. In the original trilogy, they\u2019re capable of warping physics itself and even destroying entire universes in some timelines.<\/p>\n Even the trilogy\u2019s central AI villain hints at a greater cosmic scale to the new game. Halo<\/em> fans will remember how that series introduced the concept of \u201crampancy\u201d for artificial intelligence constructs. Cortana accumulated too much information and lived beyond her seven-year lifespan, causing her neural architecture to become unstable. But that concept was directly inspired by the way the original Marathon game presented it with Durandal, an AI on the colony ship who seeks to transcend the manmade limits put upon it and become a sort of god that exists outside the universe\u2019s repeating cycles.<\/p>\n In the trailers for 2026\u2019s Marathon,<\/em> when you see phrases like \u201cYou follow the path fitting into an infinite pattern\u201d or similarly cryptic poeticisms, these are things said by Durandal in the previous games. The line “Somewhere in the heavens, they are waiting” from the game’s intro cinematic is the original game’s tagline and was spoken by Durandal in reference to the Jjaro. While it\u2019s not confirmed, the going theory among fans is that voice actor Ben Starr \u2014 who provides a lot of the voiceover narration in the game \u2014 is actually voicing Durandal. A lot of these deeper connections to Marathon<\/em> lore remain unconfirmed by Bungie, but the presentation of a S\u2019pht is a strong indication that it\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n For now, Bungie\u2019s new Marathon<\/em> still feels like a tense sci-fi extraction shooter where mercenaries scavenge an abandoned colony. But if the original trilogy is any indication, firefights with security robots is only the beginning. Somewhere out there on Tau Ceti IV \u2014 or in the Marathon ship drifting in orbit \u2014 something ancient and far more powerful is probably waiting.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/static0.polygonimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/in-death-we-ve-just-begun-ft-poppy-and-son-lux-official-music-video-_-marathon-launch-cinematic-6-15-screenshot.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2\")
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