Genuine Question: Why is this game called Marathon?

Since there seems to be more hype for this game than I anticipated here, I’ll say this first: The game looks fine. The art style is distinct and I don’t really have any issues with the character designs. I’m not an extraction shooter fan so I’m not educated on what makes them good, but the gameplay looks perfectly fine. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s excitement.

I’m just very confused over why this is a Marathon branded game. I watched all the reveal stuff and it really feels like it has no relation to the original games except for the robot enemies having UESC branding, and also like, being about artificial life in some capacity?

Marathon is well known mainly for its story, but this game is going to be multiplayer only and I feel like that Isn’t going to be well suited for telling the themes of the original. Maybe they can deliver it through text only like in the originals, but I don’t really think that’s what modern gamers want, and it was only like that in the originals because of limitations.

The stuff that feels like Marathon in the cinematic trailer is the narration quoting Ozymandius, and I’m pretty sure that’s just pulled from the original game. Is the voice saying it Durandal? Does it even matter when the game seems like it might not have the means to even have a character like Durandal in it? The cinematic’s tone is a different kind of surreal from what the weirdest parts of the originals did, which is fine, but I think shows the disconnect.

The gameplay obviously isn’t similar since the original wasn’t a movement based team extraction shooter, but I’m not considering that a main problem. The weapons all seem very basic, and I know the original didn’t have the most exciting selection of weapons for a Boomer Shooter, but they still had a unique edge to them. Are you even going to be able to dual wield shotguns? Also yeah no aliens but I get why they aren’t doing that in a multiplayer game.

This is maybe too harsh and too niche of a reference point, but it feels like the Netflix Electric State movie, where they just completely reverse the themes for no apparent reason. You’re not isolated in space because it’s a team multiplayer game set on a planet that at least somewhat resembles earth and appears to be colonized by humans, and the theme of humanity in the inhumane isn’t really being met because even if your characters are androids or robots, they still all mostly look human, and the non-player enemy robots are the only ones that don’t have human features.

A more recognizable comparison, and probably more accurate if I were to guess, was the last Prey game, which was only named Prey because Bethesda had the rights to the name and wanted to use it. This game feels like the people at Bungie were making a new IP, but couldn’t come up with a name for it, so decided to use the Marathon name for brand recognition.

I don’t wish failure on the game or have any hate for anyone excited for it, but I personally can’t feel any excitement for it when it seems so disconnected from the parts of the series that I liked and what I think make it special. It’s disappointing to me.