Marathon’s pre-release server slam is operating all through this weekend, giving players their first correct probability to strive Bungie’s extraction shooter. While getting a really feel for the gameplay, some gamers additionally found that the phrase “Arc Raiders” was censored from Marathon’s in-game chat.
Clips exhibiting the censorship began circulating on-line, as picked up by Kotaku. Streamer Lirik posted a clip testing the chat censor, discovering that Arc Raiders seemed to be the one main shooter that was banned from dialogue in Marathon. Whereas posting “arc,” “raiders,” and even “arcraiders” was allowed, the sport would clean out “Arc Raiders” as a phrase, even with areas or double areas between the letters. Kotaku additionally examined the chat filter in-game, confirming what had been posted by streamers and content material creators.
In response to a similar clip on X, the Marathon dev workforce account quickly posted a screenshot exhibiting Arc Raiders uncensored in chat, reversing the phrase filter. The dev workforce’s screenshot reads “Arc Raiders is superior. 2 desserts!” referring to a popular meme about comparability in art–however the screenshot was posted with none rationalization of why Arc Raiders was censored in chat to start with.
Whereas followers of extraction shooters could be joyful to have two desserts when Marathon releases on March 5, the sport will undeniably launch into direct competitors with the favored Arc Raiders, which has sat persistently close to the highest of the Steam charts because it launched. Marathon’s free server slam has attracted respectable participant numbers, peaking at round 143,000 concurrent gamers and propelling it to quantity 3 on Steam’s prime sellers chart, however the paid launch subsequent week would be the true check of Marathon’s endurance.