Marathon 2: Durandal

About Marathon 2: Durandal

Marathon 2: Durandal is a first-person shooter video game, part of the science fiction series Marathon by Bungie. It was released on November 24, 1995. The game is mostly set on the fictional planet of Lh'owon, homeworld of the S'pht, and once again the player takes the role of a shipboard security officer from the Marathon. This is the only game in the series to be officially released for Windows and Xbox 360 XBLA in addition to the Mac. The unofficial Aleph One source port, built on Marathon 2's engine after Bungie made it open source in 1999, allows the game to be played on modern platforms, as well as providing a multitude of enhancements. The entire game including assets was released for free to the public by Bungie in 2005, now commonly bundled for distribution with Aleph One. The game was rereleased on Steam by the Aleph One team and Bungie in 2025.

While Marathon 2 retains many of the core elements of gameplay of its predecessor, Marathon 2 has a very different feel, primarily because it uses an expanded engine and the setting of the game is different. The game's interface has been changed, with the view of the player being much wider than in Marathon (which was smaller to improve game performance) and now taking up the lion's share of the screen, displaying the player's health and oxygen bars horizontally at the bottom of the screen rather than on the left vertically above the motion sensor. Virtually all of the graphics and sounds have been replaced; instead of background music for the audio accompaniment of gameplay, Marathon 2 employs ambient sounds such as wind or alarms. Unlike its predecessor which takes place on the UESC Marathon ship, Marathon 2 takes place primarily in outdoor environments. Levels tend to be larger, open, brighter, faster-paced, and far more dynamic than those of Marathon.

Marathon 2 adds one new weapon, the shotgun. Like the pistol, a player who finds two shotguns can wield both simultaneously. Some of the dynamics of existing weapons have been changed, such as that of the pistol which now carries eight bullets per magazine instead of seven, the total redesign of the Enforcer's alien weapon from a machinegun to a flamethrower, and allowing the player to use both fists. Some creatures have been added and others dropped, and the dynamics of some of the retained creatures have been changed. For instance, the civilians, completely defenseless in Marathon, now carry pistols they can use to defend themselves (and with which they will shoot the player if attacked). Items can teleport into a level, as can creatures, some of whom can also teleport out. Although the player still primarily replenishes health and oxygen at wall stations, Marathon 2 features health and oxygen canisters the player can pick up.

One of the most distinctive additions to the engine is liquid media which the player can enter and swim. There are four types of media: water, sewage, lava, and goo, the latter two being harmful to the player's health when entered. While submerged, the player can move around, use the run key to swim upward and out, punch, or fire the fusion pistol (although the pistol will backfire and harm the player). The player moves slower while under media than on the surface, and loses oxygen, and while under lava or Pfhor goo, also loses health. Each pool of liquid media has its own dynamics such as flow direction, speed, viscosity, and high/low tide, and in some cases, the player can modify a media's tide level. Although there is no limit to the amount of media on a level, and each pool of media can have unique dynamics, no level can feature more than one kind of liquid media.