Marathon’s development team has issued a statement about cheating in the game, pledging to improve detection and add better player reporting tools to the game.
Posted on X via the official development team account, the statement starts by acknowledging rising concerns around cheating in Marathon. In the days prior to this post, reports of cheating were circulating online, especially in high ranked lobbies. While cheaters have been popping up since the game’s launch, it appears to be a growing problem, though the full scale of the issue remains unclear.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy around cheating. We’re actively banning confirmed cheaters and expanding our telemetry and detection methods to better catch the aforementioned cheaters,” Bungie’s post reads. “Some of this work is live already, and more improvements will roll out over the coming weeks. Anti-cheat is a continuous cycle of monitoring, improving, and responding. This is an area that we will continue to invest in to protect the integrity of your runs.”
In addition, more reporting tools are apparently coming, including easier reporting options in the game and official website, improved reporting for in-game harassment, and exploring options for in-game mail which communicates the progress of such reports.
Longer term, Bungie is also apparently “investing in better voice chat moderation tools”, as well as anti stream-sniping measures. Stream-sniping being the practice of intentionally hunting down influencers livestreaming the game to ruin their match. This last issue could include an option to hide account names in-game.
Much of this statement is a re-emphasis of prior stances by Bungie, which was keen to establish a no second-chances approach upfront. Cheaters will still be permanently banned upon discovery of such behavior.
