ARC Raiders/Marathon
Embark/Bungie
If there is one thing that keeps extraction shooter developers up at night, it’s cheaters, given that the stakes are much higher in a multiplayer game where you can lose an entire loadout of loot going up against someone breaking the game. Now, Bungie’s Marathon rolled out a zero-tolerance, one-strike ban that players are celebrating. Especially when compared to ARC Raiders’ much-lambasted three-strikes policy.
Bungie was unequivocal about this. “Anyone found to be cheating will be permabanned from playing Marathon forever, no second chances.” There is an appeals process, but there is no policy in place for multiple chances outside of what may turn out to be false positives (which can happen).
It does feel like a direct shot at ARC Raiders, which announced a three-strike plan in January that players thought was too lenient. Now, immediately after the Marathon announcement, ARC Raiders has perhaps not coincidentally both clarified their anti-cheat capabilities and announced “tighter” restrictions and no-mercy perma-bans at times:
“We’ve recently taken action against different exploits and we are further tightening our rules and stepping up enforcement. Serious infractions now carry stricter consequences. Strong detections will receive permanent bans right off the bat, while others will receive a temporary suspension and a single chance to correct the behavior.”
A lot about Marathon has felt like an attempt to “answer” ARC Raiders, perhaps not directly, but at least filling a potential hole in the extraction market. That includes harder-core PvP focus and endgame compared to ARC’s more casual and increasingly PvE-focused play as of late. Now they’ve done the same with their cheating policy.
There is no reason to think that Marathon is about to knock the mammoth ARC Raiders off its throne (appealing to hardcore PvP players may chase away casuals), but Bungie has been saying all the right things lately, which is good timing given that its server slam is in a few days and launch is a few days after that end, its release on March 5.
It will be impossible to completely eliminate cheating from games like this, and Destiny 2 players have been very worried about what might happen in Marathon, given how much cheating has gone on in Destiny PvP over the years. Bungie seems to have tripled down in prevention now, including this policy, but how it all works in practice remains to be seen. ARC does feel like it needs to get a better handle on cheaters, as it is at least partly responsible for recent sharp player declines, among other issues. This may be a good start.
Follow me on Twitter and YouTube.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.