The writing for this series was great. Overall the game was really a cut above most other things out there at the time. As a Mac gamer (a rare breed for sure) it felt special to have something so good just for us. They did port Marathon 2 for windows, but I don’t think it was a huge commercial success. I’m glad that it was open sourced though so that it could be shared with everyone.
Marathon had a function to record and replay gameplays, and there was a community of people sharing their in game accomplishments and challenges. Vidmasters was probably my first taste of something like a speedrunning community. But it was enough to beat the level, we needed to vid it with style.
I imagine that most fans already know this, but just in case, I recommend checking out Marathon Rubicon, which is an excellent unofficial sequel to Marathon Infinity.