Marathon’s alien enemies could get very weird

Marathon initially looks like a straightforward sci-fi extraction shooter: you play a cybernetic Runner scouring the ruins of a Tau Ceti IV colony, competing with other teams to collect loot and fight UESC security robots before exfiltrating. That loop works on its own, but elements from the original 1990s Marathon trilogy and hints Bungie has dropped suggest the game could expand into stranger territory — alien civilizations, ancient precursor technology, and primordial entities that bend the laws of physics.

The original Marathon introduced alien slavers called the Pfhor and the enslaved S’pht, essentially brains carried by floating cybernetic bodies. The new game’s eight-minute cinematic includes moments that echo that imagery: a glowing green blast in a dark corridor, a levitating figure with tendrils and a red cloak, and what appears to be a human-made S’pht doll in a storage locker.

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