New Bungie IP Possibly an Action RPG, not Call of Duty

Recently Bungie signed a ten year publishing and distribution deal with the antichrist of video games publishers, Activision - even despite all the legal issues going on between it and Infinity Ward.

Something caught my eye the other day, and that was their new IP that they’re working on other than Halo Reach will actually be something new, for the first time in who knows how long. And it’s rumoured to be an Action RPG, similar in style to Mass Effect or even Deus Ex.

The studio is currently looking for a lead writer for the storyline of the game.

"Can you inspire artists to create whole worlds and races of creatures with a few, quality keystrokes? Your words will help define Bungie's next game universe."

It looks as though they heeded the words of the all knowledgeable Randy Pitchford a while back, who urged Bungie to do something other than Halo for a change.

Bungie has made it clear though that this new title will not be Call of Duty, even despite the terrible situation involving Activision “shooting the race horse” that was IW, putting the Call of Duty, and Modern Warfare, series in jeopardy.

In related news, the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta is now live, and it can be accessed through the Halo 3: ODST disc, if you have it. The download “weight” is 1.15 GB. The beta runs until May 19.

"The download process may be subject to extended wait times. Server load is expected to be extremely high, especially during the first few hours and days of Beta availability. Please bear with us and stay tuned to Bungie.net for news and information."

----

Sources:

New Bungie IP to be an action RPG, suggests job listing [VG247]
Halo: Reach beta is go, go, go! [VG247]
Bungie: 'No interest' in tackling Call Of Duty [CVG]

New Bungie IP Possibly an Action RPG, not Call of Duty

Bungie Re-Trademarks Marathon

Long before Halo, there was Marathon. In fact it was a trilogy of games made by Bungie, the same people. They were released in the mid 90’s, mainly for the Mac, but were largely ignored by the PC audience, who were too busy playing Doom and Doom II. In fact only the second game, Marathon 2 was ever released on the platform.

Anyhow, it was picked up by Superannuation the other day that Bungie has re-trademarked the name Marathon.

Now comes speculation time. I doubt it’s going to be a re-release seeing as the Marathon games were released as freeware years ago. It could be some sort of re-boot, seeing as another cherished game from the 90’s, Rise of the Triad, recently got an iPhone version of the game.

There might be plans to remake one of those games, seeing as Doom was sort of remade in Doom 3, and Doom 4 might well be a remake of Doom II: Hell on Earth. But that’s just a rumour.

I somehow doubt that Bungie or anyone else would ever consider making a sequel in the series, seeing as the Halo games are really spiritual successors to the Marathon series. So, if they wanted to make another Marathon, they could just make another Halo, which is what they’re doing with Halo: Reach.

But I could be wrong.

Some rumours say it’s because one of the games might appear on Xbox Live Arcade. The 2nd game, Marathon 2: Durandal, was released on XBLA nearly three years back.

Then again, it could be nothing…

----

Source: Superannuation

Bungie Re-Trademarks Marathon

Apocalypse Then: Marathon

15 Years of Marathon

On this day in gaming, 21 December, in 1994, a perhaps lesser known game by the name of Marathon was released.

Why do I say it’s lesser known? Because firstly it was released at a time when Doom and Doom II were on the scene, and secondly it was only for Macintosh. Despite being technologically advanced over other games like the aforementioned Doom games, not everyone knows about these games.

It’s a FPS developed and published by Bungie Studios, best known for the Halo series, which many claim is a spiritual successor to this series of games, collectively called the Marathon Trilogy,  which also consists of two sequels in Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity. The Marathon Trilogy is set in the same universe as Pathways Into Darkness, another Bungie title.

Marathon 2 was released for PC as well as Mac, unlike the other two games, and also made it onto XBLA. If anything it’s arguably the best known of the games because of appearances on these platforms.

About five years after the first game’s release, Marathon 2’s source code was released and after that a fan-made source port, Aleph One, was made, initially for Mac but later other platforms like Windows. More than ten years after the first game’s release, Bungie released the trilogy as freeware, and total conversions of the other two games in the series were made, so nowadays PC gamers can play all the games in the trilogy.

Apocalypse Then: Marathon