As frustration with Marathon cheaters intensifies, Bungie says improvements to its 'zero-tolerance policy around cheating' are underway: 'This is an area that we will continue to invest in'

Marathon Protect/Destroy 4: A close-up of MIDA's Gantry liaison. — (Image credit: Bungie)

Marathon just completed its second full week since the rollout of its Ranked competitive mode, and despite the mind-boggling complexity of its holotag system, its players have been confronting a simple problem: When a game has ranks, players will cheat to climb them.

Since its launch, reports of Ranked cheaters have become so prevalent that some streamers are calling the mode "ruined"—a sentiment echoed by frustrated runners on the Marathon subreddit. Today, Bungie responded to those piling complaints, saying it's already been banning cheaters when it detects them and will be continually refining its tools to do so.

We’ve seen the conversation about cheaters, toxicity, and competitive integrity in Marathon, so here’s a quick update from our Product Security team.Detection & enforcement: We have a zero-tolerance policy around cheating. We’re actively banning confirmed cheaters and expanding…April 7, 2026

"We have a zero-tolerance policy around cheating," Bungie said in an update on X, reiterating the one-strike-you're-out permaban protocol it had laid out ahead of launch in February. "We're actively banning confirmed cheaters and expanding our telemetry and detection methods to better catch the aforementioned cheaters."

Article continues below

The studio says some of those improved detection tools have already gone live, with further improvements expected in the weeks ahead.

"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," Bungie said.

Bungie said it's also "iterating" on making it easier for players to flag suspected cheating and report toxicity, both in-game and through its reporting website. It's also investigating the possibility of sending an in-game mailbox message when action is taken as a result of a player report you've submitted. It's nice to get confirmation that somebody's facing repercussions for being awful, after all.

Better voice moderation options for handling habitually toxic chat behavior and stream sniping protections are on the studio's to-do list as well. In the meantime, Bungie's encouraging runners to "please keep reporting" cheating and harassment as it appears.

"It all feeds into the systems and people working to keep Tau Ceti fair," Bungie said.

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.