The fact that there was any form of plot at all was unique in the action and shooter genres.

No. It wasn't.

There is this mindset that all that existed was DOOM (which actually did some interesting things narratively. I will always love that you actually die at the end of Episode 1 and don't realize it until Episode 3 and you realize you were in Hell the past hour or two).

Marathon 1 came out in 1994 and built on Pathways into Darkness (1993... and I think actually did a better job of coupling narrative to gameplay than Marathon and Durandal). It came out the same year as System Shock and the year after CyClones (woefully underrated). Both of which also heavily relied on text bits but also, in my opinion, did a much better job of tying that narrative into the level/encounter design itself. Something Marathon... kind of wouldn't really do until Infinity in 1996 where there is even more competition.

It was the first major release with free look and being able to aim up and down at all.

Again, CyClones and System Shock

Plus reloading weapons, dual wielding weapons, weapon models visible on the player in multiplayer,

"Tactical" shooters had already existed and I want to say there were a few DOOM Engine games that had reloading by this point?

Weapon models? I doubt it, but sure. Voice chat? Sure? That sounds real fun over sub 56k internet.

None of which changes Marathon classic mostly just being a "generic" FPS with a wall of crazy lore bible used to make the log entries.

To be clear: I LOVE the Marathon Trilogy. But if you actually look at what the games were, rather than what we wanted them to be... they were great writing, awkward level design, and decent shooting.

I think the Mac thing was the biggest advantage. It meant that it was forbidden fruit that the vast majority of us could never play but MAYBE saw the box at a Circuit City. And then, fast forward a decade or so, and Halo comes out and suddenly EVERYONE is curious about the games that Bungie are totally referencing to a meaningful degree... and nobody played them or they MAYBE booted up Aleph One once and were scared off.

And I already ranted about how "FPS with story" is not some miraculous thing that didn't exist.. That is one of those things that really bother me because so many people just assume there was nothing but iD until Half-Life (or even Call of Duty).

But yeah. Mandalore Gaming did a few videos on Pathways->Marathon Trilogy that are REALLY good and convey the useful bits. And the reality is... they were good for their time but they weren't mind blowing. And the narrative, while fun to read lore on, is also the kind of thing that you can completely ignore... and probably won't even understand unless you find the hidden terminals and cross reference them with EVERYTHING else.

Which... kind of reminds me of Dark Souls come to think of it.

Part of the confusion is that there was a different Prey game being worked on a couple years earlier that actually was connected to Prey 2006, but that project was canceled and the studio working on it closed.

Given the quick turnaround between Prey 2 being canceled and Prey 2017 launching, I have to assume that Bethesda just took a separate project that Arkane was working on and slapped the "Prey" name on it to try to save face and show that the IP was still alive and well after the sequel was canceled.

Honestly, much like with Marathon but on a shorter time scale, I think they just bet that there aren't enough fans of the old one to be precious about the name. The name had very little to do with why I (still) haven't played Prey 2017.