Bungie is on the verge of launching its latest game, Marathon — an extraction multiplayer shooter based on the studio's old series.
Releasing on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S on 5th March 2026, the sci-fi FPS is just over a week away, and the team has shared a blog post highlighting its efforts regarding network and security measures.
Most notably, Bungie has strong words for cheaters. "Anyone found to be cheating will be permabanned from playing Marathon forever, no second chances," it says.
Further into the blog post, it elaborates on this a little bit.
"We are taking a strong stance against cheating and anyone found to be cheating or developing cheats will be permanently banned from playing Marathon forever, no second chances. That said, no system is perfect so we will have an appeals system to monitor for any issues in detection."
Elsewhere in the post, Bungie explains that the game's dedicated servers are "fully authoritative over movement, shooting, actions, and inventory".
What that means is the servers will reject invalid input from players without impacting anyone else. The idea is to prevent unauthorised actions like "teleporting, unlimited ammo, or damage manipulation".
It sounds like Bungie has put a lot in place to ensure Marathon is a smooth and fair experience.
We'll be able to put it to the test very soon in the game's Server Slam, which runs from 26th February to 2nd March.
Are you excited to hop into Marathon? Are you encouraged by Bungie's stance on cheating? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source bungie.net, via reddit.com]
Comments 32
All for this AS LONG AS there is a reasonable way to have it reviewed in good time if you are wrongly accused. Which does happen.
Now this, I support.
DonaldGloverGooddotgif.
More studios should do this to be honest.
Make it an macro transaction: Pay to unban. 20€ the first time, then double it each time.
Sounds good to me. Excited to try out the game during the server slam
Ban all single player players to
They might want to keep as many players as possible lol
As it should be. People who cheat in multiplayer games will almost always cheat again, the blatant lack of consideration towards other people's gaming experience shows they're beyond help.
I guess that's going to be a huge drop in pc players 🤣. Seriously though this is good and something that should be implemented in all online competitive games.
@Bsb56 why?
The worrying thing is when Bungie starts saying all the right things and actually starts dropping 40 min gameplay videos that look excellent. Bungie cooking is usually the start of Complacent Bungie. Hoping a trigger happy Sony keeps them on their toes.
When I read the first part of the headline, I thought it was not about cheaters, but the game itself.
@Northern_munkey Indeed, when people bang on about just how amazing PC is, I always think "what about all the cheaters that ruin online games?"
@Artois2 because they ain't going to play it anyway 😂😂
I hope this proves a positive, all competitive games should adopt this - esp COD. So sick of the cheaters in that game .... I'm going to try the server slam as I am interested in this and did enjoy Destiny ... I hope it doesn't suck
Embark is kinda being soft on exploiters and cheaters atm on Arc Raiders. They should take a lesson from Bungie.
30 days then 60 days then perma is way too many chances lmao.
Is it not a fact microtransactions is cheating.
@Americansamurai1 ahh great answer.
I wish Capcom do the same for SF 6 cheaters.
@Dalamar "When I read the first part of the headline, I thought it was not about cheaters, but the game itself."
My reaction as well. At least we know what all the comments will be if the game crashes and burns. And the title of the article, just have to remove 1 word. 😂
Who knows though, maybe all the Destiny 2 players will move over from that game?🤷♂️
Damn. Can they afford to lose 5 of their 10 players so soon?
@Bsb56 😂 thought you meant players who played online by themselves
I'm assuming this only applies to PC as there's probably no way to cheat on console
@spikes91 People always find ways to cheat on console, it's just harder to do & more limited.
@spikes91 console players cheat. Granted its most probably by using glitches and exploiting bugs but it's not as egregious as the pc code monkeys..
@Oram77 I turn off cross play in BF6 and Arc Raiders mostly because of the cheating vermin on PC. Its a shame really because I'm all for cross play but there's always those individuals that have to ruin it.
Hopefully this game does great, which it should since it was topping the PlayStation store pre order chart and was in the top 5 pre orders on steam.
Still better solution is to place cheaters permanently into separate cheaters servers. Or return them their money they payed.
That’s right. Every single one cheater of these 20 guys willing to buy it.
Bold of them to assume I will be playing.
Is it an IP ban or an account ban? If I buy a second copy can I get back into this truly truly amazing game?
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