"Typing Arc Raiders into your squad's group chat returned "*** *******" instead. One Twitch streamer's clip showing the censorship has already started making the rounds online. You can type "arc." You can type "raiders." You can type "arcraiders." You can even type "arc raiders." But you can cannot type "Arc Raiders.""
"Even weirder, this isn't the first time "Arc Raiders" has been censored in an online multiplayer shooter. The same thing happened with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 last fall, even though the rogue text filter issue was later patched out. EA was reportedly censoring 2025's hit extraction shooter as well."
"In Marathon's case, the genre rivalry is a bit more straightforward. The game's success will depend in part on people taking a break from Arc Raiders' new season to loot robots on Tau Ceti IV instead. Shots were already fired over competing approaches to banning cheaters."
Marathon, Bungie's new extraction shooter, launched a free pre-launch server test attracting over 100,000 players on PC and console. The game's chat filter automatically censored the phrase "Arc Raiders," Marathon's primary genre competitor, replacing it with asterisks. Players discovered the filter only blocked the exact phrase; typing "arc," "raiders," or variations with spacing bypassed the censorship. This wasn't an isolated incident—Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and other extraction shooters had similar issues. The censorship reflected competitive tension between Marathon and Arc Raiders, with both games competing for player attention and implementing different anti-cheat strategies. Bungie patched out the filter within hours of the discovery.
Read at Kotaku
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]