List of Marathon References in Halo



This is a list of all the references to Marathon that Bungie put in the Halo games. Mostly sightings of the Marathon logo, seen in the first image right.

Halo: Combat Evolved

 * Captain Keyes - He has the Marathon logo on his uniform.
 * Captain Keyes - His pipe has the Marathon logo on it.
 * Control Room - The Control Room main chamber, when viewed from the top, is shaped like the logo.
 * Cortana - The Marathon AI Durandal, is named after a mythical sword. Cortana is a sword which bears the inscription: My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal.
 * Dialogue - Sometimes Grunts or Marines will shout "They're everywhere!", similar to the BOBs of Marathon.
 * Difficulty Selection - The Marathon logo appears on the Easy shield.
 * Foehammer - A level in Marathon: Infinity is called "Foe Hammer".
 * Level title - Marathon has a level "If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I'd Make Somebody Pay", Halo has a part "If I Had a Super Weapon..."
 * Light markers - The Covenant light markers in Two Betrayals bear a resemblance to Pfhor staffs.
 * MJOLNIR - There are Mjolnir Mark IV cyborgs in Marathon, there is Mjolnir Mark V battle armor in Halo.
 * On the back part of the Halo rocket launcher it says "SPNKR" which is a reference to the Rocket launcher of marathon       which is title the "SPNKR X-18 SSM Launcher".
 * Pillar of Autumn - The Marathon logo can be seen on the side of the ship.
 * Rampancy - If the player kills Captain Keyes in the first level, Cortana says, "The Master Chief has gone rampant."
 * Silent Cartographer (Level) - The center of the island is shaped like the Marathon logo.
 * Halo PC Loading Screen - If you brighten the gamma on Halo PC a lot, you can see what looks like the Marathon symbol etched in the background of the first loading screen.
 * The MA5B Assault rifle is similar to the MA-75B assault rifle in terms of ammo and name
 * The flamethrower in Halo PC has a similar name to the flamethrower found in Marathon : 7057 = TOZT
 * The forerunner AI 343 Guilty Spark has a resemblance to the Marathon symbol on his front side ( where his photo receptors are)
 * The Flood resemble the Zombie Pfhor, an enemy which was cut from Marathon 2 during its development.
 * The dot on the I in the Bungie logo resembles the circle in the Marathon logo.
 * The Plasma Pistol is much like the Fusion Pistol from Marathon:Durandal, which also shares a vibrating overcharge shot.

Halo 2

 * UESC - Lord Hood says, "United Earth Space Corps," Marathon features the Unified Earth Space Council.


 * The marathon symbol is also used in the Halo 2 Multiplayer online as a gamer tag symbol.


 * Doors - The doors on the level "Regret" in Halo 2


 * If you get outside the level Burial Mounds, look at the rubble by the "ribs" a large piece of debris is engraved with it


 * The Enforcers shields make up a Marathon symbol.


 * If you melee with a shotgun, you can see a Marathon symbol on the silver casing.


 * The multiplayer map "Foundation" is based off of the Marathon "Thunderdome" levels.


 * The multiplayer map "Gemini" is based off of the Marathon level "Duality".


 * On Headlong, in the building which houses mostly human weapons, if you look at the second floor from above it makes out the Marathon Logo


 * If you look at the multiplayer map "Ivory Tower" from above, you will see that the circular courtyard and the small ditch which the water runs along makes up a Marathon logo.


 * The Elite rebellion against the Covenant parallels similar events in the Marathon series. In Marathon 1, Durandal convinced a group of S'pht to rise up against the Pfhor who enslaved them; and after Durandal's disappearance in Marathon 2, the rebel S'pht found themselves stranded together with a group of humans on a hostile world (similar to the Elites' predicament on Delta Halo).


 * The player's main goal in Halo 2 is to stop the Covenant from inadvertently destroying all life in the galaxy with the Halo installations; in Marathon Infinity, it was to prevent the Pfhor from inadvertently releasing a galaxy-destroying chaos being.


 * Some Marines can be heard saying "Eat it, boi!", possibly reffering to the Marathon 2 level named "Eat it, Vid Boi!"

Halo 3
The weapons are often decaled with Marathon symbols


 * When you look at a High-Res screenshot of John's gun from the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer you can see a Marathon logo. Confirmed by KP


 * The BR55HB SR Battle Rifle has the Marathon logo on it's optical sight.


 * There is an achievement for 'accessing all the terminals in the campaign' which is called Marathon man, suggesting that Halo 3 may reintroduce the practice of revealing backstory through messages on computer terminals which the player can optionally read, a gameplay element which was introduced in Marathon (and also used in Oni.


 * In the second E3 Trailer, boxes marked TRAXUS can be seen. Traxus IV was the name of a famous rampant AI in Marathon's universe.


 * The Brute Mauler was probably based on the shotgun from Marathon, which was also dual-wieldable.


 * There is a Marathon:Infinity level editor called Forge. Halo 3 shares that name of its map editor.

Misc.

 * Cortana Letters - These messages are riddled with references.
 * Drinol - Similarity with Drinniol, a Marathon foe.
 * Hunter - Similarity with Marathon foe of the same name.
 * Marathon-class - A class of ship mentioned in Halo: The Fall of Reach.
 * Multiplayer - The multiplayer game "Oddball" is derived from Marathon's "Kill The Man With The Ball", which had the same objective.
 * In both Halo and Marathon, there is a company called Misriah on Mars.
 * A secret level in Marathon Infinity was named "Hats Off to Eight Nineteen" (after the initials of Hamish Sinclair (H=8 S=19), a dedicated fan). $$819/7=117$$ (Master Chief's service number)
 * The source code for Marathon 2 was released on January 17 (1/17) of 2000.
 * An early promotional brochure(?) for Halo used the tagline "Somewhere in the heavens, Halo is waiting", a variation on Marathon's original tagline.
 * On the side of the rocket launcher reads "SPNKr" which was the name of the rocket launcher in Marathon
 * Marathon 1 takes place in a ship that is orbiting Tau Ceti IV, and there is a system in Halo called the Tau Ceti system (although that star does really exist).