: So originally Marathon 2 was meant to have a secret Pathways throwback level?
: Reminds me of M1A1.
Yup.
Sayeth the Scrapbook: An early plan called for Marathon 2 to end by dumping the player in the first level of Pathways Into Darkness, thus making the connection between the two games explicit. Plans changed, though, and the only remnant of the idea is a vague allusion to “an entirely different reality than the one of the starship Marathon” in the Marathon 2 manual... Infinity’s storyline defies simple description, relying as it does on multiple realities and alternate timelines. Early versions of the story included a side-trip to the world of Pathways Into Darkness (since it had been cut from Marathon 2) but this idea was eventually shelved for good.
Another point of interest: the Armageddon Beast was slated to appear in M2.