Bungie Addresses Marathon Anti-Cheat Discussions

Since the launch of Marathon, there have been a number of reports and complaints about cheating in Bungie’s PvPvE extraction shooter, and in response to these complaints, Bungie has taken to social media site X to detail its anti-cheat systems and explain what the development team plans to do to improve the situation going forward. Bungie starts off by reiterating its zero-tolerance policy for cheating in Marathon, confirming that once a cheater is detected, they will be banned from the game forever, but it goes on to explain that cheating is a “continuous cycle of monitoring, improving, and responding.”

Bungie goes on to say that it has already implemented some improvements to its anti-cheat systems, but that the development team is working on several new features that will make it easier to report cheaters and easier to provide evidence of that cheating. For starters, it is making it easier to report cheaters both in-game and with web tools, and it is working on tools to give players feedback when their reports result in actions from the anti-cheat system. Bungie is also working on tools, like username privacy options, that will make tactics like stream sniping in competitive matches more difficult. The studio encourages players to report cheaters and toxic players with as much evidence as possible, including clips and VODs. The increased complaints of cheating in Marathon come despite the game’s use of BattlEye anti-cheat, which has incidentally locked out Steam Deck and Linux users from playing the game.