If you’ve found yourself totally confused by the story of Marathon – or rather you wish you could quickly catch up on all the series’ history to better understand the events of Bungie’s latest extraction shooter – a group of fans have created the perfect resource for you.
This resource is a website, specifically a big fancy timeline website, timeline.bumgie. Bumgie being the fan-creation collective responsible for this handy tool. The timeline breaks down all the major events within the Marathon series, reaching all the way from the original 1994 Marathon all the way through Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity, Pathways Into Darkness, and 2026’s Marathon. All in chronological order, of course.
It may be worth noting, the newest Marathon is totally enjoyable without this pre-existing knowledge. You don’t necessarily need to know what happened millions of years ago and what American president had an impromptu meeting with an alien. However, given the highly-redacted nature of some lore logs sprinkled throughout Marathon 2026, knowing the events of the wider series does provide killer payoff to certain events.
Marathon, which has always been a visually and narratively (especially in Infinity’s case) bold series, a trait which appears to be alive and well in this new iteration of the franchise. In terms of what we can see, the game is a stunning homage to retro sci-fi with modern flare, technofashion with dystopic corporate rot attire. From what we know of the story so far, a tragedy of ambition rent asunder by forces unimaginable. A species-defining voyage doomed to crash upon the shore of ancient cosmic forces. Interesting stuff once you can wrap your head around it.
If you want to know how the game plays, and figure out whether or not it’s something for you, Eurogamer’s Marathon preview is a grand place to start.
