Mac Gaming News - Huge New Rubicon Project Breathes New Life Into Marathon

by , 10:30 AM EST, February 7th, 2001

A project called Marathon Rubicon is getting closer to release. Marathon Rubicon is being billed as the "largest Marathon scenario project ever created," and their claims look to be correct. The project includes new levels, new creatures, new textures, and a new story line. According to Marathon Rubicon:

The truth is the first casualty of war.

The highly-regarded Marathon Trilogy by Bungie Software has long held a near and dear place close to the heart of every Mac gamer. With its complicated story and timeless game play, Marathon's laurels are much deserved. Over the course of the six years since Marathon 1 was released, the game's fans have worked long and hard on countless efforts to extend the life of the game beyond what came in the box. Teams of artists, map makers, sound gurus, and others joined to create masterful scenarios and total conversions for the Marathon engine, hacking together their own tools for modifying the original games.

With the advent of Marathon Infinity, Bungie's comprehensive content-creation tools for the engine were released. Scenario makers everywhere rejoiced, and highly motivated artists began constructing custom scenarios of scales that eclipsed even Bungie's original games.

Enter Rubicon.

Four years in the making, Rubicon is the largest Marathon scenario project ever created. To give some sense of the magnitude of this scenario, Rubicon features:

• 360+ new textures
• Over a dozen new characters
• Tons of new scenery
• 8 new weapons
• More solo levels than any other Marathon scenario to date

...all wrapped into a nonlinear plotline that can be traversed in any number of ways, featuring different endings based upon a player's choices over the course of the game. Randy Reddig, the texture artist and a map maker for Bungie's original Marathon Infinity, called Rubicon's visuals "...the nicest I've ever seen come out of Marathon." If you've played any Marathon game, Rubicon will reignite your love for the series.

Marathon Rubicon is currently in late beta testing, and will be publicly available for free download when testing is complete

The project organizers shared a QuickTime movie with the press that they say will be released to the public at some point in the future. This movie is most certainly a pleasure to behold, and The Mac Observer will be among the first to bring you news of its official release when it hits. For more information on the project, check out their Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

The Marathon series has long been one our most favorite Mac games. Made by Bungie Software and released in December of 1994, the original Marathon was the best 3D FPS on the planet, and it was available exclusively for the Mac. Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity remain at the height of the FPS genre in terms of playability and story line. In fact, Deus Ex, published for the Mac by Aspyr, is the first game to approach the level of Marathon 2 and Infinity in those areas. Marathon 2 was ported to the PC a year or so after it was released for the Mac, but it was overshadowed by a sea of Doom clones in the PC market, and was never much of a success. Too bad for them.

Marathon has an enduring fan base, and this new project really promises to revive the Marathon gaming scene.

Marathon Rubicon