Bungie explains Marathon's 'graphic retro futurism' aesthetic and the 'live narrative' lessons it learned from 'Destiny' (Interview)

Bungie解释了马拉松的“图形复古未来主义”美学以及从“命运”中学到的“现场叙事”经验教训（采访）

The Marathon series has been around since 1994, when developer Bungie — now better known for Halo and Destiny — released the original FPS game for the Apple Macintosh. After nearly 30 years lying dormant, the cult series has returned as an online-only extraction shooter with a unique look and the promise of ruthless action on a decaying planet.

马拉松系列自1994年以来一直存在，当时开发商Bungie——现在因《光环》和《命运》而闻名——为苹果麦金塔电脑发布了最初的FPS游戏。在沉睡了近30年后，邪教系列以独特的外观和在一个腐烂的星球上采取无情行动的承诺回归。

Extraction shooters were seen as a niche genre for the "hardcore" gaming crowd, but the meteoric rise of ARC Raiders has popularized the shooter subgenre for a more casual audience. Can Marathon repeat this success? We think so, even if the bio-cybernetic mercenaries roaming the ruins of Tau Ceti IV's lost colony make it a more unforgiving place to exist than post-apocalyptic Italy.

提取射击游戏被视为“硬核”游戏人群的利基类型，但ARC Raiders的迅速崛起使射击游戏亚类在更休闲的观众中流行起来。马拉松能否重复这一成功？我们是这么认为的，即使在Tau Ceti IV失落殖民地废墟中游荡的生物控制论雇佣兵使它成为一个比后启示录时代的意大利更无情的地方。

We wanted to ask Bungie — specifically Julia Nardin (Creative Director), Joe Ziegler (Game Director), and Brian Vinton (Senior Art Director) — about its plans to recruit curious Runners, and whether we can expect universe-building as dense as Destiny's from its post-launch roadmap.

我们想问Bungie——特别是Julia Nardin（创意总监）、Joe Ziegler（游戏总监）和Brian Vinton（高级艺术总监）——关于它招募好奇跑步者的计划，以及我们是否可以从其发布后的路线图中期待像命运号一样密集的宇宙建设。

The following Q&A has been editorialized and lightly trimmed for better flow.

为了更好的流畅，下面的问答已经过编辑和轻微的修剪。

A point of concern with Marathon has been how it aims to onboard new players, especially those who have no clue about the series' previous history. Nardin kicked things off, saying there are "lots of ways to tell a story," with the strictly multiplayer making up for the intended lack of traditional campaign with a more video game-y and subtle narrative:

《马拉松》的一个关注点在于它如何吸引新玩家，尤其是那些对该系列过往历史一无所知的玩家。纳丁首先表示“讲故事的方式有很多种”，这款纯多人游戏将通过更具电子游戏风格、更为含蓄的叙事方式来弥补传统战役模式的缺失：

"The core loop is about scavenging an abandoned colony, so we set out to tell the best possible story about that colony and the people who lived there," explains Nardin. "A lot of that is done through the loot itself – there are text files and audio logs that you can collect that will help you piece together what happened on Tau Ceti IV."

“核心循环是关于清理一个废弃的殖民地，所以我们开始讲述关于那个殖民地和生活在那里的人们的最好的故事，”纳丁解释道。“其中很多都是通过战利品本身完成的——你可以收集文本文件和音频日志，这将帮助你拼凑出Tau Ceti IV上发生的事情。”

"Many of the contracts you take from the factions who have a vested interest in the Marathon expedition also guide you and your crew along that journey, encouraging you to explore different corners of the world on your way to profit and mutual understanding. Durandal is back, of course, and we also have a lot of new characters – human, AI, and everything in between!"

“你从那些在马拉松远征中有既得利益的派别那里获得的许多合同也指引着你和你的船员沿着那段旅程，鼓励你在通往利润和相互理解的道路上探索世界的不同角落。当然，杜兰达尔回来了，我们也有很多新角色——人类、人工智能，以及介于两者之间的一切！”

Marathon has a pretty stacked voice cast, even if the actual 'runs' mostly involve sneaking around, grabbing valuable loot, and getting into gunfights against bots and players. Those names aren't just added value, and Nardin dared to promise "a few unexpected twists and turns that we're hoping will surprise everyone."

马拉松拥有相当多的配音演员，即使实际的“跑步”主要涉及偷偷摸摸、抢夺有价值的战利品以及与机器人和玩家进行枪战。这些名字不仅仅是附加值，纳丁敢于承诺“一些意想不到的曲折，我们希望能让每个人都感到惊讶”。

The Marathon that's just launched isn't meant to "replace" the original trilogy, though the alt-reality sections of Infinity and how this new entry connects to the whole thing remain a large mystery, probably on purpose.

刚刚推出的马拉松并不意味着“取代”原来的三部曲，尽管无限的另类现实部分以及这个新条目如何与整个事情联系起来仍然是一个很大的谜，可能是故意的。

Past what's already available and ready to be uncovered, the game's 'live narrative' will unfold over the course of seasons (free playable content and paid cosmetics included). When discussing this key part of Marathon, Nardin made sure to underline that Bungie has learned some lessons from Destiny 2's mistakes and the 'vaulting' of past content:

除了已经可用和准备被发现的内容之外，游戏的“现场叙事”将随着季节的推移而展开（包括免费的可玩内容和付费化妆品）。在讨论《马拉松》的这一关键部分时，纳丁一定要强调，Bungie已经从《命运2》的错误和过去内容的“跳马”中吸取了一些教训：

"We want Marathon to be an additive experience in the sense that all priority contracts and story content aims to be evergreen, meaning that it doesn't matter when you join, you'll still be able to play through the established questlines and fill out your Codex with achievements and collections that allow you to uncover additional layers of the world. We'll be adding to this foundation over time in the live service environment, depending on our players' response and at a cadence we can support, but we know what direction we want to go in and what we want to create for the community to uncover next."

“我们希望马拉松成为一种附加体验，因为所有优先合同和故事内容都旨在常青，这意味着无论您何时加入，您仍然能够通过既定的任务线进行游戏，并用成就和收藏填充您的法典，让您发现世界的其他层面。随着时间的推移，我们将在实时服务环境中为这个基础做出贡献，具体取决于我们玩家的反应以及我们可以支持的节奏，但我们知道我们想要走的方向以及我们想要为社区创造什么来发现接下来。”

Moving on to the game's stunning visual presentation, we had to ask Vinton, one of the art leads on the game, about how Bungie landed on its striking mix of cyberpunk DNA, techwear elements, and sci-fi imagery that felt reminiscent enough of its previous works without being more of the same. According to him, it all started with a "deconstruction" of the old Marathon games and "digging into" the industrial sci-fi elements and "crisp graphic designs" that evolved alongside the studio during the development of Halo and Destiny games.

谈到游戏令人惊叹的视觉呈现，我们不得不询问游戏的艺术负责人之一文顿，Bungie是如何将赛博朋克DNA、科技服装元素和科幻图像惊人地结合在一起的，这些图像让人想起它以前的作品，但又不完全相同。据他说，这一切都始于对旧马拉松游戏的“解构”，以及“挖掘”在《光环》和《命运》游戏开发过程中与工作室一起发展的工业科幻元素和“清晰的图形设计”。

"On Marathon, we call this aesthetic 'graphic retro futurism' – kind of a fusion of retro roots, oddball cool, modern technology, and visuals that correlate with modern tech, such as digital dithering that you see when rendering, and lattice structures seen with 3D printing... Our approach is to make the weird and unexpected look cool, in a uniquely Bungie and Marathon way. So yeah, the cyberpunk and techwear tones grew out of this search for freshness and surprise, and now they form a pillar of the game's identity," he explained.

“在马拉松上，我们将这种美学称为‘图形复古未来主义’——一种复古根源、古怪酷炫、现代技术以及与现代技术相关的视觉效果的融合，例如渲染时看到的数字抖动，以及3D打印中看到的晶格结构……我们的方法是以独特的Bungie和马拉松方式让怪异和意想不到的东西看起来很酷。所以，是的，赛博朋克和科技服装的基调源于这种对新鲜感和惊喜的追求，现在它们形成了游戏身份的支柱，”他解释道。

Marathon also clearly leans way harder on science fiction and cosmic horror than 'space fantasy' as seen in the two Destiny games. Some of that comes from Halo's many dark sections (remember the Flood?), but it's all amped up here.

马拉松显然也更倾向于科幻小说和宇宙恐怖，而不是两款命运游戏中的“太空幻想”。其中一些来自光环的许多黑暗部分（还记得洪水吗？），但这里都放大了。

For Nardin, it was essential and a natural "inversion" of what Bungie fans had come to expect. "It's a natural fit for an extraction shooter where we need to maintain a persistent feeling of tension. Our plan is to evolve Tau Ceti IV over time in a way that reinforces the game's core loop, differentiating it from Bungie's other titles as our community's presence on the planet begins to influence what might be lurking there," she added.

对于纳丁来说，这是必不可少的，也是Bungie粉丝所期待的自然“反转”。“这很适合我们需要保持持续紧张感的提取射击游戏。我们的计划是随着时间的推移以一种强化游戏核心循环的方式发展Tau Ceti IV，将其与Bungie的其他游戏区分开来，因为我们的社区在这个星球上的存在开始影响可能潜伏在那里的东西，”她补充道。

Hungry 'loreheads' can also expect to learn more about the universe we're not directly seeing and interacting with on Tau Ceti IV. From my time with the game so far, Marathon already packs lots of engrossing lore and little stories as part of its codex entries, audio logs, dialogue sequences, and surprising cutscenes. Beyond the game's central mysteries, anticipate the focus to remain on "the player's relationship with the factions back home on Earth and Mars" and "the colonists who joined the (doomed) expedition." Runners and what their nature implies are a "parallel narrative" that will evolve too.

饥饿的“学究”也可以期待在Tau Ceti IV上了解更多我们没有直接看到和互动的宇宙。从我玩这个游戏到目前为止，马拉松已经包含了许多引人入胜的知识和小故事，作为它的抄本条目、音频日志、对话序列和令人惊讶的过场动画的一部分。除了游戏的核心谜团之外，预计焦点仍然是“玩家与地球和火星上的派系的关系”以及“加入（注定的）探险队的殖民者”。跑步者和他们的本性所暗示的是一个“平行叙事”，也会进化。

Nardin pointed out there's an interest in exploring "Runners as a community" and the kind of people "willing to give up their human body" for an augmented one: "Your consciousness has been copied, making you functionally immortal, but it comes at a great personal cost. And are you even still really you?" Marathon isn't just about the alien planet and the thrill of raiding a colony's remains; those looking for deeper sci-fi themes (and willing to do some reading and listening) will be fed too.

纳丁指出，人们有兴趣探索“作为一个群体的跑步者”，以及那种“愿意放弃自己的人体”来获得增强的人：“你的意识被复制了，使你在功能上不朽，但这需要付出巨大的个人代价。你还是真正的你吗？”马拉松不仅仅是关于外星球和掠夺殖民地遗迹的刺激；那些寻找更深层次科幻主题（并愿意做一些阅读和听力）的人也会得到满足。

To conclude, and looking at the actual video game in front of us, we also asked Ziegler about what the plans are for players who don't enjoy regular squads. "At launch, we'll be providing both solo queue and the Rook experience for solo players," he confirmed. It marks a solid start – with Rook being an odd class (shell) in that it's a way to join the runs as a silent scavenger of sorts – but a 'duos' queue could be happening soon-ish too.

最后，看着我们面前的实际视频游戏，我们还问齐格勒对于不喜欢常规阵容的球员有什么计划。“在发布时，我们将为单人玩家提供单人队列和车体验，”他证实。这标志着一个坚实的开始——车是一个奇怪的职业（外壳），因为它是一种作为某种无声清道夫加入跑步的方式——但“双人”队列也可能很快就会发生。

In any case, he and the rest of the team are hoping that "players will discover the joy of playing in a crew." My experience with Marathon so far tells me that's the best way to experience what it has to offer, but I'm glad Bungie hasn't forgotten about "lone wolf" players, and more could be coming on that front beyond solo queues and playing as the Chappie-like robot among trios.

无论如何，他和团队的其他成员都希望“球员们能发现在一个团队中打球的乐趣。”到目前为止，我对马拉松的体验告诉我，这是体验它所提供的最好方式，但我很高兴Bungie没有忘记“独狼”玩家，除了单人排队和在三人组中扮演类似查皮的机器人之外，更多的人可能会出现在这方面。

"Marathon" launched on March 5, 2026, for PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

《马拉松》于2026年3月5日推出，适用于PC（Steam）、PS5、Xbox Series X|S。