Marathon Doesn't Work On Linux

02 Apr, 2026

In 1994, Bungie launched Marathon for the Apple Macintosh, giving users of the platform a sci-fi flavored alternative to ever-popular PC game DOOM. Years later, the game received an open source port which was released on Steam in 2024, under the title Marathon Classic (along with it's sequels Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity). Later in 2025, the trilogy received an update bringing it natively to Linux systems in 2025.

Oh, but this article really isn't about that. The Marathon series received a... reboot? in 2026 also titled Marathon. It runs on Windows, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X. You cannot run it on Linux (or MacOS for that matter) at all. Ostensibly it should work fine running through Proton, but the game's anti-cheat blocks all Linux users. Even though BattlEye Anti-cheat can be enabled to work on Linux, the developers have maintained the explicit choice to block us off.

(Marathon is the big thing everyone is talking about these days. Image credit Bungie)

It's kind of a baffling decision considering the series' history as the answer to DOOM for people on Windows' biggest competitor in 1994. However, the new reboot is an online multiplayer extraction shooter, and a lot of developers really don't like allowing their online games to work on Linux, convinced that it's worth shutting out potentially paying customers in hopes to prevent cheaters from circumnavigating the anti-cheat with Linux, however that is done. The developers often try to justify this by saying that the number of people using Linux is so small that it's not worth supporting, but, I mean, if so few people are using Linux anyway, then shouldn't the number of cheaters using Linux be such a tiny percentage of that already tiny percentage? The math just doesn't math up.

I made the switch to Linux when I bought a desktop computer in 2024. I won't lie and say there haven't been frustrating moments, but overall it was a smoother experience than I was expecting. Maybe it's because I was prepared to experience a lot of issues getting into it, but it just wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, and I've been more and more vindicated by my choice to switch every time I hear about whatever current bullshit is going on with Windows 11. Gaming especially is quite easy, most of the time Steam handles everything under the hood, as Valve's Proton compatibility layer effortlessly translates Windows games into being playable on Linux. There are also custom compatibility tools from the community, such as GE-Proton which incorporates more fixes for better compatibility with certain games, and Luxtorpeda which allows you to install and launch community source ports for games (particularly older ones) directly through Steam. You can also install games from other storefronts in launchers like Lutris and Heroic launcher, so you need not be reliant on Steam specifically if you don't want to. (I will say that, please do more research and don't just take my word for it if you're planning on switching to Linux. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to switch and I'm not here to advocate that everyone do so.)

Going in, I was aware of the issue with anti-cheat games blocking Linux, but I figured it wouldn't really be an issue affecting anything I really wanted to play. I'm not big on multiplayer shooters (or competitive multiplayer games in general) but I have kinda been getting the itch to get into one again. In the past I was really into Team Fortress 2 and then later Overwatch before Blizzard sacrificed it for Overwatch 2. So maybe I could try something new, something like, you know, the new Marathon game. It's kinda funny, one of the main reasons that game actually entered onto my radar was because I saw the news about the Classic Marathon games being ported to Linux, and it got me a bit interested in the series. I've tried out the first game and it's pretty cool, maybe I'll do an article on it in the future.

So, what gives, anyway? Why is Classic Marathon being given such love and attention as to be brought to new platforms, while New Marathon is locked down tightly? Well, you've probably already put it together, the Classic Marathon series is open source and maintained by fans, they're no longer commercial products, just games that you can play for free if you'd like. Those fans brought the games over to Linux because that's what they wanted to do. There probably wasn't a lot of people asking for them to do that, it's not like the Windows version couldn't already be played through Proton, but they did it anyway. New Marathon, on the other hand, is trying to make money, and so the people in charge of it are money people, and those money people decided they don't want people running the game on an operating system fully controlled by the user. Some money people get it, it's not like every online game blocks Linux, and Valve has notably invested a lot into Linux, even if it is for their own business reasons.

(GamingOnLinux's Steam Tracker.)

In the most recent March 2026 Steam Hardware Survey, the percentage of users on Linux jumped up to about 5.33%¹. It's possible this might be a statistical anomaly, the previous month reported 2.23% of users on Linux, which doesn't really make sense compared to the previous two months reporting 3.38% in January 2026 and 3.58% in December 2025 respectively (EDIT: Looking at the graph above, it seems there's typically a dip around Febuary/March in the past few years, for some reason). You can't really glean how many people are "switching" to Linux from these stats because most Steam Linux users are Steam Deck users, and likely own the Steam Deck as a compliment to their Windows PC, but the overall trend is clear; demand for Linux gaming is increasing rapidly. This trend is likely to continue especially once Valve releases their Steam Machine and Steam Frame hardware. Meanwhile, as more and more signs point to the Generative AI bubble bursting, among other factors causing general economic anxiety, Microsoft is already taking a bit hit in it's stock price as they scramble to stop shoving Copilot into everything in an attempt to win back the trust of users. The tech giant bet big on AI and they're losing that bet.

This all goes to show that Microsoft's dominance in the computer OS market is not inevitable, and in the near future, a lot of gaming companies are going to be missing out on a pretty significant player base if they continue to block Linux on their online games, games that can and will get shuttered if they don't achieve a consistent playerbase, mind you. That's not to say that I think Linux will become the dominant platform, but as the possibilities on Linux keep opening up, we're going to see more and more people jumping ship due to the continued enshittification of Windows 11, combined with more and more people using Linux on their secondary hardware. I don't think it'll be long before we see 10% or maybe even 15% of users gaming on Linux in some fashion in the near future². Companies might still look at those numbers and scoff, it's only 10% of players, why cater to them? But on the other hand, that's a potential 10% increase in your userbase. Sure, a lot of those players are still also using Windows, but how many might end up passing on a game that they won't be able to play on their Steam Deck or Steam Machine? I know businesses are bad about thinking long term but I'm trying to wrap my head around the business sense of purposefully excluding a subset of players for such frivolous reasons, especially when the hard work is already taken care of by Valve and the anti-cheat software that they chose to use, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Oh well, if Bungie doesn't want my money that badly then I won't give it to them.

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