Marathon Infinity
| Marathon Infinity | |
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| Developer(s) | Bungie Software |
| Publisher(s) | Bungie Software |
| Series | Marathon Trilogy |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS |
| Release | October 15, 1996 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Marathon Infinity is the third game in the Marathon Trilogy of science fiction first-person shooter computer games from Bungie Software. The game was released on October 15, 1996 and included more levels than its predecessor Marathon 2. These were larger, and formed part of a more intricate plot that spanned both space and time. Marathon Infinity, unlike Marathon 2, was originally released only for the Apple Macintosh. However, Bungie released the source for Marathon 2 in 1999, allowing the development of the open-source Aleph One engine. In 2005, Bungie released the entire trilogy to the public as freeware, allowing the games to be freely downloaded. Finally, in 2011, Bungie released the source code for Marathon Infinity itself.
The story in the single-player version of Marathon Infinity, titled “Blood Tides of Lh’owon”, is not told in an explicit fashion. The narrative begins as if large parts, if not all, of the events in Marathon 2 had not happened. The story involves the player "jumping" between alternative realities via surreal dream sequences, seeking to prevent a chaotic entity known as the W’rkncacnter — an eldritch abomination — from being released from Lh'owon's dying sun. These jumps are apparently caused either by Jjaro technology or by the W’rkncacnter’s chaotic nature; at the end of Marathon 2, as the Pfhor's Trih Xeem or "early nova" device is fired upon the sun to explode it, Durandal recounts an ancient S'pht legend in which the W'rkncacnter was sealed inside of the sun by the Jjaro eons ago. The player begins as Durandal's ally, only to be transported almost immediately to a reality where Durandal did not capture the player after the events of Marathon. As such, he is controlled by the Pfhor-tortured AI Tycho.
There are four sections to the solo levels of Marathon Infinity, each with its own intro screen. The first is Prologue, in which the player, under Durandal's control, is given a grim message about their fates. The second section is Despair, suddenly has the player under Tycho's command as mentioned previously and inevitably leads to the levels "Electric Sheep One" and "Where are Monsters in Dreams"; the latter level can lead to two choices, one of which is "Aie Mak Sicur", a level indicating a failure to complete the plot and leads to the first level of the third Chapter, Rage ("Where are Monsters in Dreams" also leads directly into Rage.) The Rage chapter eventually leads to the second "Electric Sheep" level and its companion, "Whatever You Please". This pair can lead to "Carroll Street Station", another failure level; both levels lead to the final chapter, Envy. Envy leads to the third "Electric Sheep" level and the last "dream" level, "Eat the Path", which can, again, lead to multiple levels. However, it can also lead back to the Rage chapter via a final failure level ("You're Wormfood, Dude"), or to the final level, "Aye Mak Sicur".
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