Pathways Into Darkness
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Pathways Into Darkness is a video game created and published by Bungie Studios in 1993. It was released for the Apple Macintosh.
Storyline
Pathways Into Darkness casts the player as a member of a Special Operations team on a mission to prevent an ancient god from awakening and destroying the earth. In order to succeed, the team had to enter an ancient pyramid in South America, reach the bottom level, and detonate a nuclear device in an attempt to "knock the god out". However, before the game begins, during the team's deployment, you are knocked unconscious, and separated from the team. Eventually, you reach the pyramid, only to discover that the team has vanished, leaving in their stead a stream of horrific monsters, created by the slowly waking god.
Gameplay
The game's style is an unusual blend between that of the first-person shooter and an RPG. While much of the game consists of fighting monsters, a great deal of time is also spent solving difficult puzzles, and conversing with dead men, who know a few of the pyramid's secrets.
Connections with other Bungie games
Pathways Into Darkness is considered by many to be the beginning of the "Bungie Mythos", a large timeline which connects this and later Bungie games.
The most salient of these connections is the nature of the "waking god" and the helpful aliens who inform the US of its nature. The "waking god" is believed to be a - or the - W'rkncacnter, a race or singular entity in the Marathon series which shares similar properties of 'evil'.
Also, the aliens who inform the US of the waking god are the Jjaro, an ancient alien race that is featured heavily in the Marathon and (as some fans believe) Halo series, although they are never mentioned by name in the latter.
There are also connections which are not directly spoken, but many believe. Although it is never directly stated, the Marathon character is rumored to be a cyborg, formed from the dead body of soldiers. This character feels as if has done certain things before, or as if he has dreamed about them. These 'certain things' match up well with nearly identical events which the main character from Pathways experienced.
Most subtle of the connections between Pathways Into Darkness and another Bungie game - Marathon - lies in a single computer terminal in the later game. While seemingly there to provide proof that a human AI is distorting human history data (to prevent invading aliens to know of Earth's location) the text is actually a highly corrupted version of the original Pathways Into Darkness story. Dealing with historical events that do not match up with actual history, the terminal discusses how a group of immortals survived for thousands of years on a hidden cave's fountain.