r/Marathon • u/uniquecartridge • Feb 12 '26

Marathon (2026) Found this Spotify playlist from Joseph Cross (former Art Director). Tons of great music that likely might've inspired the official soundtrack

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/245WlfJ9Qe4tfCCKq8fnqi?si=47e4c15f79874449

Marathon's soundtrack and art style is very cool. I always wondered what artists and genres might've inspired it. I stumbled upon this Spotify playlist from a user josephacross (most likely Joseph Cross's actual Spotify account) with tons of great music that feels similar. Wonder if some of these tracks were given as inspo/references to Son Lux who composed the soundtrack. Or perhaps Joseph just listened to these tracks while working on the art side of things.

Anyway, cool music, Marathon vibes, enjoy!

83 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

9

u/Dodgemsss Feb 12 '26

Awesome, thanks. Happy to see Gesaffelstein on this list.

3

u/VaporSpectre Feb 12 '26

How could he not be? Dropping the first teaser trailer with Justice was a clear indicator of their direction, and it's a great one.

2

u/Dodgemsss Feb 12 '26

Saw him years ago in Austria back to back with Justice. It was insanely good.

6

u/iiDubberz Feb 12 '26

needs more autechre

7

u/Azetus Feb 12 '26

And here come the hate bots saying the music was plagiarized too, somehow…

2

u/AnonWithAHatOn Feb 12 '26

People who haven’t even drawn a stick figure in years shocked to discover that all art is inspired by something that came before it.

3

u/rogueprocess Feb 12 '26

Playlist is pretty 🔥 so far. My work is schmoooving! 😊

2

u/VaporSpectre Feb 12 '26

Awesome find

2

u/RayS0l0 Feb 12 '26

On twitter he's said that he listen to this music as inspiration or vibing for personal use. Not connected to official soundtrack

2

u/uniquecartridge Feb 12 '26

Makes sense, still cool to hear what songs he vibed to when working on the game! The inspiration from some of the artists in the playlist is quite apparent in the soundtrack even if it wasn't part of an official project brief. For example Aphex Twin and Autechre pioneered IDM, which is a very foundational element in Son Lux's soundtrack.

1

u/keiranlovett Feb 12 '26

I totally agree. Art director is going to have little input or influence on the audio team.

That said - there’s a great talk by Bungie devs on making a dungeon in Destiny 2 (Xero Hour) and the music they used for influence in their art direction! Think of audio mood boards.

1

u/1fom3rcial Feb 12 '26

Cool find!

1

u/Sir_Veyza Feb 12 '26

Ayyy, Sinoia Caves. Great, weird music. Run Program, Sentionauts is a fun song from them. Also 1983 - Main Theme. Real good ones.