This is a list of (mostly) completed soundtracks for Bungie’s Marathon (1994) and its sequels, plus fan games for Aleph One, the open-source continuation of the Marathon engine. With the exception of Tempus Irae Redux, Eternal X 1.3, and hellpak vol. 2’s monster work-in-progress soundtracks, I’ve attempted to keep this predominantly to completed or almost-completed projects. (I’m still revising my Logic Pro mixes, but they’re subsequent revisions of albums that contain all sixteen tracks from the original game; conversely, some twenty years later, I think it’s safe to say Tobacco or Cannibal Whore Feast are each highly unlikely to do additional remixes, and they do give you all sixteen tracks of the OST between them.)
A quick note on file formats: Usually, FLAC is for listening outside the game, and MP3 or Ogg Vorbis for use within it. (Aleph One 1.6.1, released 2023-01-19, was the first version to play FLAC, and it only does so with MML and Lua scripts; thus, it’d take some work to get it to play FLAC with Marathon 1 maps.) I use ‘upmastered FLAC’ to denote that I didn’t have a lossless source and made a facsimile. I explained my process in a document included with the Eternal 1.2 OST, which I’ve reproduced with edits for clarity, brevity, & the insights I’ve gained from five subsequent years of working with sound. (Also, acknowledgements to Solra Bizna for the term ‘upmaster’, which is a more descriptive term than my previous choice, ‘pseudo-FLAC’.)
I’ve endeavoured to list release dates as accurately as possible. All dates are ISO 8601 (the objectively correct format): thus, yyyy-mm-dd, yyyy-mm, or simply yyyy, depending on the specificity of the information I possess.
Those curious about my remastering process for the releases found below may wish to consult my notes on my remastering process, which now have their own page. Those interested in making their own content for Aleph One may also be interested in my introduction to mapmaking and more advanced guide. If what you’re looking for isn’t on this page, you may want to check my discography page (which contains some Marathon music that I haven’t yet listed here) or my creative portfolio. Please contact me if you notice any errors or omissions.
A final note: the table of contents immediately above is a very brief overview; see the “Soundtrack Index” immediately above the endnotes for a list of every soundtrack on this page.
Original MIDI files. Note that all files are 60 bpm 4/4, owing to how QuickTime stored MIDI data in .mov files (which is what Marathon’s soundtrack actually used).
Quantized files with the correct tempi and time signatures.
(Still forthcoming: Non-quantized files with the correct tempi and time signatures.)
Craig Hardgrove’s site has a massive number of these. Except as noted, the following aren’t on his site, and unless otherwise noted, they all contain at least one remix of every track in Marathon 1’s OST:
QuickTime 2.0 in the left channel, QuickTime 2.5 in the right. Technically, these could be counted as my second remixes of the OST (I released them on 2021-02-03), but I’ve listed them first because they’re so similar in sound to the OST that they barely qualify as remixes.
My first remixes. Extremely faithful to the original sound, adding only stereo, reverb, new instruments, and a few other flourishes.
Upmastered FLAC. Contains the following eight tracks:
Wonderful remakes that add some tasteful – and tasty – new instrumental parts.
Upmastered FLAC. Tasteful reorchestrations with a higher-quality synthesizer.
Upmastered FLAC. Contains the following eight tracks:
Like Chibi-usa’s, these are tasteful reorchestrations with a higher-quality synthesizer. And you can combine these with Tobacco’s for another complete set of remixes.
First released 2008-02-23⁽¹⁾ and has grown and expanded with each 1.x release.
by Dr Craig Hardgrove, Tommy T-Bone, Nicholas Singer, & Eike Steffen
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Marty O’Donnell, & Michael Salvatori
Upmastered FLAC. Craig’s site has the Ogg Vorbis files (but if you have Eternal X 1.2 or 1.2.1, you already have most of these anyway) and a link to the YouTube video. These may remain the most famous and acclaimed remakes of the OST; if not, they’re probably neck-and-neck with CKT’s.
by Aaron Freed, Dr Craig Hardgrove, wowbobwow, Talashar, CKT1138, Solar‑Tron, Dan Storm, Matrix_XV, Tommy T-Bone, Nicholas Singer, Trey J. Anderson, & Eike Steffen
featuring compositions by Alexander Seropian, Marty O’Donnell, & Michael Salvatori, & Chris Christodoulou
Over seven hours of music by some thirteen contributors drawing mostly from Marathon 1’s soundtrack. There’s some overlap with several composers’ work below, but many tracks have been revised, remixed, or remastered for Eternal 1.3, and since they frequently segue seamlessly into one another, you probably won’t have heard most of them in these exact configurations before. The OST has been updated and expanded substantially even in recent months, and several of its mixes are unique to Eternal 1.3.
There are two different versions of this soundtrack, which should not be confused as they serve different purposes:
Note that Eternal 1.3’s soundtrack incorporates tracks that appear in several other collections here, including Craig Hardgrove’s Somewhere in the Heavens, Talashar’s Eupfhoria, CKT1138 and Matrix_XV’s remixes, my 1997 remixes, and See You Starside (and its related albums).
The bulk of Eternal’s soundtrack prior to 1.3, and still a major component of it in 1.3.
AIFF, M4A, MP3, & .band via Craig’s website. (The link to the source files on his downloads page actually just links to the original MP3 releases; he posted the correct link on his news page.)
FLAC/upmastered FLAC: Remasters of higher-quality sources of seventeen tracks on Eternal X 1.2’s OST. Eleven tracks (listed alphabetically, with track numbers preceding them) have lossless AIFF sources:
I’ve upmastered the other six, which were lossy M4A:
In addition, I’ve declipped most tracks to mitigate clipping distortion. These are likely the highest-quality versions of these tracks I’ll be able to make until I’m able to re-export the original project files in GarageBand 1.1.0 and 3.0.5 sans clipping; however, a few project files have missing loops, and if we can’t locate them, I may be unable to remaster them all perfectly.
Some interesting, inventive takes. I wouldn’t have thought to rearrange ‘Leela’ as a metal track, but… somehow, it works.
Bandcamp (stream, FLAC, other formats). Atmospheric reorchestrations that add new layers of harmony and melody, resulting in some fantastic twists on old classics.
Faithful reorchestrations using vintage ’80s and early ’90s synthesizers, with a sound worthy of Vangelis’ Blade Runner OST on several tracks. To be honest, these are so well done that they’ve killed the entire concept of “faithful Marathon soundtrack remakes” stone-cold dead for me (which CKT later acknowledged as his exact intention – in general, that is, not for me specifically); I can’t imagine anyone ever topping them. My recent versions (see below) have had exactly the opposite aim from “faithful remake”.
Lush, generally faithful remakes with modern synthesizers, and the points of departure, like the Black Sabbath-inspired take on ‘Landing’, are superb.
My latest complete Marathon OST arrangement album, made from 2022-12 to 2021-01 in GarageBand. I’d already planned to take creative liberties with the OST’s sound when I started, but as I gained familiarity with GarageBand’s surprisingly robust feature set, I took steadily more, heavily expanding many tracks almost to a “complete rewrite” extent (See You Starside adds some thirty-eight minutes to the OST’s running time, and nine tracks are more than twice as long as the originals). Samples of Roland drum machines and Mellotrons are ubiquitous. The primary influences on this album are ’70s progressive rock, ’80s pop, ’90s Japanese game music, and ’90s/’00s post-rock; secondary influences include metal, jazz, blues, classical, disco, ambient, Gregorian chant, electronic music, and film and TV soundtracks.
That’s hardly all, though – See You Starside spawned several spin-offs:
FLAC. The above mixes’ ‘orchestral’ counterpart (though, as I can’t afford to hire an actual orchestra, it’s really every bit as synthetic). Most of the melodies are identical, but the instrumentation favours violins, harps, and pianos over guitars or synthesizers (though this is not a universal rule). Occasionally, the orchestra is more eastern (you’ll hear a koto on several tracks and a sitar on at least one), or may involve electric violins, viole, celli, or basses; unfortunately, we were unable to confirm the involvement of any electric light orchestrae. I don’t really like this title, but I never thought of a better one.
FLAC. The result of combining See You Starside with Violins Again. Honestly, I don’t really like this title either, but again, I never thought of anything better. The subtitle is at least justifiable in that, by the time Marathon takes place, genres like rock, jazz, and even hip-hop and metal may well be termed Classical music the way we colloquially call Baroque, Romantic, and even Modernist music ‘Classical’, even though the Classical period was properly only from ca. 1750 to ca. 1820.
WIP revisions of the above sets using Logic Pro and EastWest ComposerCloud+ instruments. I composed and arranged the above sets entirely in GarageBand and, with only four exceptions, used GarageBand or MainStage instruments – I wanted to show that it needn’t cost a fortune to make music that sounds good. (Violins Again and …And Beyond’s ‘Aliens Again’ and ‘Chomber’ use ComposerCloud+ instruments. MainStage is an entirely reasonable $50, and GarageBand comes free with every Mac.) I’m now revising them with professional-grade software and instrumentation, but note that several tracks currently have significant instrument balance issues; I’ll fix these in subsequent revisions.
I just found out this existed; I haven’t listened to it yet, and probably won’t have time to do so until at least 2024-12-25. I don’t know the exact date when it was released either, but it’s available on Simplici7y (and apparently also on Bandcamp, but the person who posted it didn’t include a link).
Several others (e.g., wowbobwow, Storm, dontask4470, Zesorath, & Myrzir) have begun but not yet finished what I sincerely hope will be complete sets of remixes of the entire OST. Search their names on the Discord and add ‘has: sound’ to find them.
by Mark Sumner (Zipper Cat), Mike Gorczynski (The Punisher), Cannibal Whore Feast (Iain McLaughlin), Julian Zielke (Mercenary), & MuShoo
The first complete Marathon 2 fan soundtrack. I think it was probably released between 2005 to 2007, but I don’t have any idea of the exact date. This was originally the soundtrack for the Marathon 2 Special Edition. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Marathon 2 Special Edition is. You have to see it for yourself.
The second complete Marathon 2 fan soundtrack, released on 2024-09-16.
The third complete Marathon 2 fan soundtrack, released on 2024-12-21 via Simplici7y.
Talashar released Strange Aeons, the first complete Marathon Infinity fan soundtrack, on 2024-04-10.
In rough chronological order (I don’t know Trojan’s exact release date, and there are conflicting sources on Excalibur 1.0’s). Eternal is with the Marathon 1 remixes, as that’s most of what it contains.
by Tom Worth, John Carlo Maffei, Jason Aguiar, Steve Campbell, and Hamish Sanderson
I never got into Trojan, except for its OST. (Ironic, as I worked on the Standalone Edition.) Tom Worth in particular has an uncanny knack for composing tracks that, by all rights, should be maddeningly repetitive, but his command of melody and rhythm is so sublime that it’s all but impossible not to surrender to the groove.
These are technically remastered, but they sound almost the same as the originals apart from having slightly more dynamic range (and the originals were already very dynamic).
I never got into EMR either, but this soundtrack goes unreasonably hard – it’s full of catchy, clever, memorable melodies that interweave beautifully with each other. The 3.0 soundtrack is probably even better, though it doesn’t give me the same nostalgia kick.
FLAC. Mostly composed by James Bisset, except:
by James Bisset, Bill Catambay, Bob Chamot, Dane Smith, Solra Bizna, Mark Sumner, et al.
Upmastered FLAC (mostly; three tracks are still MP3s because upmastering them wouldn’t have restored any dynamic range or high-frequency audio data). These are entirely different arrangements and, often, songs. I also don’t know many of their correct titles or composers, but neither did EMR3’s creators.
by CryoS & Kevin MacLeod
Yes, that Kevin MacLeod. And his work is every bit as good as you’d expect – and CryoS’ is just as good. Some dude on YouTube wrote that CryoS and MacLeod:
provided some superb, extremely diverse work. “Animosity” is worthy of Vangelis’ Blade Runner OST; “Chronological” should be the final movement of a seven-part Genesis epic; “Babylon” is absolutely gorgeous and would’ve fit beautifully on Yasunori Mitsuda’s Chrono Cross OST; “Misuse” could be a chart-topping club banger from an alternate timeline; and so on.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. :-)
by tbcr, Matrix_XV, CKT1138, & NEFX
As the person that mastered this soundtrack, I’m admittedly biased, but nonetheless, it is a truth universally acknowledged that hellpak’s OST slaps.
by Matrix_XV, tbcr, CKT1138, Aaron Freed, & NEFX
FLAC. (Note: As this currently contains over seven hours of music and some 130 tracks, only around 30% of what’s in here will make it into the final release.)
by hypersleep
I admit to sometimes being a little bit jealous that hypersleep is so very good at so many things. One person shouldn’t be this good at level design and art and music and… (On normal days, I just feel fortunate to get to work on projects with developers of such depth and breadth of skill.)
Upmastered FLAC. (YouTube video forthcoming pending creation of artwork.)
by Aaron Freed, Alexander Nakarada, Rafael Krux, Kevin MacLeod, Chris Christodoulou, Nine Inch Nails, Bryan Teoh, Brian Boyko, CKT1138, Sean Magee, Rich Wilcox, & Fungus Amongus
FLAC or upmastered FLAC. The track list remains to be finalized, since I’m still revising my tracks (and, in fact, still writing new ones), but I’m likely to have around ninety minutes of music on what looks set to be a roughly four-hour OST. (Readers may also be interested in my commentary on Compositions 2023-2024, which contains two hellpak vol. 2 tracks and the first thirteen tracks I wrote with Tempus Irae Redux in mind, though currently, only five of the latter are slated to be included. At some point, I plan to write detailed commentary for my newer Tempus Irae Redux tracks, which will appear on a completely different album – Compositions 2023-2024 already exceeds two and a half hours in length.)
| # | Note |
|---|---|
| 1. | Eternal X 1.0 was released on 2008-02-23, 1.0.1 on 2008-02-24, 1.0.2 on 2008-02-29, 1.0.3 on 2008-03-01, and 1.1 on 2015-10-26. See footnote 2 for Eternal 1.2’s release history; Eternal’s development page for release dates of all past versions of the game, including betas and the Mark versions (which are to Eternal X roughly what the Apotheosis beta is to Apotheosis X or what The Gray Incident is to Phoenix); and Eternal 1.3’s manual for a historical breakdown of what tracks were used on what level in each major release. Most of Craig and Nick’s tracks were present in 1.0; 1.1 added Tommy’s tracks and a few more by Craig. |
| 2. | Eternal X 1.2.0 itself came out on 2019-03-28, but we first released its OST on 2018-12-21 to commemorate Marathon’s 24th anniversary. Eternal X 1.2.1 came out on 2021-11-07. |
| 3. | A press release linked on Wikipedia is dated 1997-06-20; archives.bungie.org lists the release date as 1997-06-23. I feel more inclined to trust the latter, as I can’t imagine Claude Errera taking three days to add such a major scenario to the archives in 1997, but due to the discrepancy, I’ve only listed the month. |
| 4. | More precisely: 1.0 came out on 2010-06-15, 1.1 on 2010-07-15, 1.2.0 on 2012-02-07, 1.2.1 on 2012-09-14, 1.3 on 2015-06-28, 1.4 on 2022-01-19, 1.4.1 on 2023-01-05, and 1.4.2 on 2024-04-06. Not all of these tracks appeared in all releases of Phoenix. I first released these remasters on 2020-05-24 via YouTube; 1.4 was the first release of Phoenix to use them. |
| 5. | OST release date. Version 42069.0 of hellpak proper was released on 2022-10-20, 42069.1 on 2022-10-31, 42069.2 on 2022-11-17, 42069.3 on 2023-02-02, and 42069.4 on 2024-06-24. |