A gang war has erupted in Arc Raiders, and a victor is already emerging as Ninja joins the Bungulators: 'I am not declaring war or picking sides against somebody whose AFK stream gets more viewers than me'

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I think it's time to start wearing Bungulator colours

close-ups of players in Arc Raiders shot in a war documentary style
(Image credit: Podgor on YouTube)

I'll forgive you if half of the headline above seemed like I was talking in tongues, because what in God's green earth is a Bungulator, what does that have to do with Arc Raiders, and why has Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins joined them? Soon, all will become clear. But first, I need to start at the beginning, with a Burnt Peanut.

TheBurntPeanut, leader of the Bungulators, is a wildly popular streamer who started in Escape from Tarkov and has since also expanded his streams into Arc Raiders and some Battlefield 6 Redsec. Oh, and his whole shtick is that he mocaps as a peanut, wild scenes.

Arc Raiders Aphelion blueprint: A raider wearing a blue and orange space-age jumpsuit while fighting a Leaper.

(Image credit: Embark)

But TheBurntPeanut isn't the only streamer parading around in Arc Raiders. As one of the most popular games at the moment, Twitch has well and truly invaded the extraction shooter. You have Shroud with his wild takes about GOTY, Ninja, who's just trying his darndest, and then others like xQc, TimTheTatman, Myth, and the second key figure in this story, HutchMF.

The spark that set this war off was some random Arc Raiders player who downed HutchMF, but not before declaring that this was "for the Bungulators". HutchMF shared the clip and announced, "This means war!!"

Since then, other streamers have picked sides, with TimTheTatman, Nadeshot, Symfuhny, and NickMercs all siding with HutchMF. While cloakzy, Myth, summit1g, RNGingy, Shroud, and now Ninja have chosen TheBurntPeanut. It's gotten so intense that HutchMF shared the "official map" of what people are dubbing The Battle for Speranza.

"His fanbase is diehard, people might be Hutch fans, people might be NicMercs fans, you don't understand, bro," Ninja explains in a TikTok. "If you go against TheBurntPeanut, you're going against guys who watch a PEANUT. You're going against people who love this guy and tune into his streams. His AFK channel almost has more viewers than me and Hutch when we go live. His AFK channel has 4,000 viewers. Do you understand that?

"I'm not declaring war or picking sides against somebody whose AFK stream gets more viewers than me, I'm not going against that fanbase, dude. I'm not going to get stream sniped by those guys. That's not fucking happening. I'm not going against the Bungulators."

@ninja

I HAVE JOINED THE BUNGULATORS. I'M NOT GOING AGAINST THE PEANUT

♬ original sound - Ninja

Honestly, that's probably a smart decision because TheBurntPeanut fans are dedicated to the bit. So much so that TheBurntPeanut has assigned an outfit for the Bungulators to wear—"clothes stained with the blood of the enemy"—so they can distinguish between them and the enemy, and people are following the dress code.

For those who want to show support for The FMF (HutchMF's group), you need to wear the Torpedo skin (red), helmet, mask, and sleeves off and goggles on. Then there's xQc, who hasn't chosen a side yet but still wants to be involved, so he declared that his fans are the neutral group who wear the origin skin (blue) with headgear on.

This war could go on for a very long time, as there's no real way to show if one side is winning or not, except for how dedicated fans are in making the enemy streamer's life miserable. So to ensure there's a hard stop to all this mayhem, both parties have agreed to go head-to-head this Saturday at 5pm PT/ 7pm CT/ pm ET/ 1am GMT on the Spaceport map for the final showdown. My bet's placed on TheBurntPeanut for winning this; his origins are in Tarkov, and he mocaps as a peanut. It doesn't get more cursed than that.

Elie Gould
Elie Gould
News Writer

Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.

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