OS Neutral Bungie's rumoured new Marathon game

[tlab]

I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. Rumours came out over the weekend that Bungie is working on a new Marathon game, apparently in the form of an 'extraction-based shooter': https://insider-gaming.com/bungie-to-revive-marathon/

Based on the piecemeal and questionable information available it sounds like it might be a spin-off set after Marathon 1, in the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti after the Pfhor nuked it between M1 and M2 (oops, sorry for the 30 year old spoilers).

And of course we all know and agree that the Mac is on the precipice of a gaming revival thanks to Apple Silicon (this is a wholly uncontroversial opinion and I am sure nobody will take umbrage in the replies), and the prospect of a Marathon game not existing on the Mac is the most sacrilegious thing imaginable.

So from this, I can say with 100% certainty that (a) Bungie is definitely making this absolutely real game, and (b) it will be on the Mac. What a time to be alive!

 

[diamond.g]

I would be somewhat surprised if the game ends up on macOS to be honest. Bungie hasn't done anything for macOS for the past 20 years. The assumption/hope is they switch from their in house engine (which as far as I know has no macOS support at all) to UE5. Maybe then there could at least have an iOS/iPadOS version.

 

[tlab]

Doing the work to make an iOS or iPad version without taking the relatively minimal steps to make it work on macOS would seem like a strange decision. And an iOS/iPad version means playing by the rules of the App Store.

I think Bungie has tended (at least since Myth I) to make its game engines relatively platform-independent, and iirc Destiny's 'Tiger' engine is a distant descendant of Halo's 'Blam' engine (which itself was descended from the Myth engine), which was developed to run on any platform. Destiny runs on Windows/Xbox and PS4/PS5 so there is definitely already a degree of cross-platform compatibility. I would be pretty surprised to see them throw out all of their work developing their own advanced engine and adopt UE5, but I am quite OOTL.

 

[Pressure]

It's usually different teams or publishers involved when it comes to iOS and macOS games. Case in point, the version of Alien: Isolation on iOS is much, much better than the version that found its way to the AppStore on macOS. One is a ****** wrapper while the other is built from the ground up with heavy optimisations and native for Aarch64.

 

[diamond.g]

Doing the work to make an iOS or iPad version without taking the relatively minimal steps to make it work on macOS would seem like a strange decision. And an iOS/iPad version means playing by the rules of the App Store.

I think Bungie has tended (at least since Myth I) to make its game engines relatively platform-independent, and iirc Destiny's 'Tiger' engine is a distant descendant of Halo's 'Blam' engine (which itself was descended from the Myth engine), which was developed to run on any platform. Destiny runs on Windows/Xbox and PS4/PS5 so there is definitely already a degree of cross-platform compatibility. I would be pretty surprised to see them throw out all of their work developing their own advanced engine and adopt UE5, but I am quite OOTL.

That they never brought Destiny to macOS and actively ban folks for playing on Linux, does leave a few questions.

 

[diamond.g]

It's usually different teams or publishers involved when it comes to iOS and macOS games. Case in point, the version of Alien: Isolation on iOS is much, much better than the version that found its way to the AppStore on macOS. One is a ****** wrapper while the other is built from the ground up with heavy optimisations and native for Aarch64.

Isn't that port on macOS and iOS from the same team? They just don't want to "backport" the improvements to macOS.

 

[Pressure]

Isn't that port on macOS and iOS from the same team? They just don't want to "backport" the improvements to macOS.

Not entirely, the macOS port from Feral still runs OpenGL while the iOS version is build upon the console version with heavy TBDR optimisations, lossy compression, reflection buffer running at full resolution etc. The iPhone 13 Pro runs the game at 900p at 60FPS for example 😅

It's a bit silly considering if it runs on A15 Bionic then it should run fine on macOS with Apple Silicon.

 

[diamond.g]

Not entirely, the macOS port from Feral still runs OpenGL while the iOS version is build upon the console version with heavy TBDR optimisations, lossy compression, reflection buffer running at full resolution etc. The iPhone 13 Pro runs the game at 900p at 60FPS for example 😅

It's a bit silly considering if it runs on A15 Bionic then it should run fine on macOS with Apple Silicon.

I mean they (Feral) did both the macOS and iOS versions, regardless of where the codebase comes from.

 

[Pressure]

I mean they (Feral) did both the macOS and iOS versions, regardless of where the codebase comes from.

I believe Creative Assembly is responsible for the Windows and macOS version, while Feral Interactive is behind the iOS and Nintendo Switch (console) version. I could be wrong though 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

[Huntn]

I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. Rumours came out over the weekend that Bungie is working on a new Marathon game, apparently in the form of an 'extraction-based shooter': https://insider-gaming.com/bungie-to-revive-marathon/

Based on the piecemeal and questionable information available it sounds like it might be a spin-off set after Marathon 1, in the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti after the Pfhor nuked it between M1 and M2 (oops, sorry for the 30 year old spoilers).

And of course we all know and agree that the Mac is on the precipice of a gaming revival thanks to Apple Silicon (this is a wholly uncontroversial opinion and I am sure nobody will take umbrage in the replies), and the prospect of a Marathon game not existing on the Mac is the most sacrilegious thing imaginable.

So from this, I can say with 100% certainty that (a) Bungie is definitely making this absolutely real game, and (b) it will be on the Mac. What a time to be alive!

I’d definitely be interested in such a game, but my honest feeling is that I can never repeat the blasts we had in Marathon multiplayer arenas, circa the 90s. Duel shotguns in tight spaces rocked.

Ironically there is a stack of old folders I am sorting through by my chair, and this is on top:

​

 

[tlab]

It's usually different teams or publishers involved when it comes to iOS and macOS games. Case in point, the version of Alien: Isolation on iOS is much, much better than the version that found its way to the AppStore on macOS. One is a ****** wrapper while the other is built from the ground up with heavy optimisations and native for Aarch64.

That seems stupid, though it looks like the Mac version was ported in 2015, long before Apple Silicon or even Catalyst existed. And this is Bungie, making a Marathon game, so I choose hope