I was mid-extract when the shot hit the wall where my teammate should have been. You know that hollow pause — the instant your progress evaporates — like a red laser cutting through fog. I told myself I wouldn’t shrug it off this time.
Server slam is open this weekend — you can jump in on Feb. 26 and test things before launch on March 5.
That’s the hard date schedule Bungie posted: a free server slam starting Feb. 26, with Marathon launching on March 5 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. If you want to try the extraction loop and its risks, you’ll find out fast whether the game feels fair to you.
On the live servers this week Bungie started naming the tools it will use to fight cheats.
Bungie laid out several layers: dedicated server networking, a server-side fog-of-war that hides map regions players shouldn’t see, client security measures, and a reconnection system so your shell can be defended if you drop out. They even put their language bluntly: “anyone found to be cheating or developing cheats will be permanently banned from playing Marathon forever, no second chances.”
I’m with you — bans that read like a courtroom ruling are comforting, but they only work if detection is solid and appeals are fair. Bungie admits “no system is perfect,” and says there will be an appeals pipeline to catch mistakes.
Will Bungie permanently ban cheaters in Marathon?
Yes, Bungie has promised permanent bans for anyone proven to cheat or develop cheats. That’s the public posture: strict, immediate, and unforgiving. But remember: harsh enforcement on paper still needs reliable detection and human review to avoid false positives.
When you’re in the middle of a run, a dropped connection can feel like an ambush on progress.
Bungie’s connection recovery aims to keep your shell in the world so your crew can guard it while you reconnect. That’s a rare nod to the human cost of network hiccups — it treats disconnects as interruptions, not automatic losses.
How does Marathon’s anti-cheat work?
At its core, the plan is layered defense: server authority over critical information, a fog-of-war that limits what clients can see, and client-side protections to detect tampering. Industry tools such as Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, or Valve’s VAC represent the kind of partners studios lean on; Bungie hasn’t promised a specific vendor in the blog post, but the architecture they described lines up with modern anti-cheat patterns used across Steam, Epic, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live.
In matches already, the emotional hit from a cheater changes how you play.
When you lose loot to someone using an aimbot or wallhack, it’s not just about a match — it’s trust broken. That’s why Bungie stresses continuous monitoring and frequent updates; they’re framing security as an ongoing campaign, not a one-off fix.
Can I keep my loot if I disconnect?
Bungie’s reconnection feature is built so your in-world shell persists, which gives your crew a chance to protect resources until you rejoin. That design treats progress as a fragile asset worth defending, and it reduces the feeling that a single network blip destroys your run.
From where I stand, the promise of “no second chances” is a bold authority cue — it raises confidence for honest players but also sets a high bar for Bungie’s detection and appeals teams. The game will live or die by how cleanly they separate real cheaters from unlucky players and by how fast patches roll.
Industry names and platforms are in the frame: Bungie, the consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X), PC storefronts, and anti-cheat vendors that studios typically rely on. The technical moves — dedicated servers and server-side fog-of-war — are the kinds of changes that actually shift the odds back toward skilled players.
There are two ways this could go: the anti-cheat holds and the extraction loop becomes a tense, trusted economy; or enforcement falls behind, and every run feels gambled away. Which side will you be betting on this weekend — Bungie’s crackdown, or the cheaters?