Embark Studios humorously embraces Call of Duty Black Ops 7's accidental "Arc Raiders" censorship

Activision has confirmed the censorship of “Arc Raiders” in Call of Duty Black Ops 7’s beta lobbies. The company revealed that the censorship occurred due to a text filter error, which has now been resolved.

The Arc Raiders censorship fiasco began on October 2, 2025, when pre-order owners and Game Pass subscribers accessed Call of Duty Black Ops 7’s open beta on October 5. Players noticed that typing “Arc Raiders” replaced the name with asterisks. However, individually typing “Arc” or “Raiders” did not trigger censorship.  

This censorship drew immediate attention on the Arc Raiders subreddit, which has garnered over 1,400 upvotes. Players speculated about potential corporate rivalry amid the heated fall shooter competition. 

As of now, a patch has been implemented with unrestricted mentions of Arc Raiders.  Activision’s PR Team elaborated to Insider Gaming that the Black Ops 7 error occurred because the moderation system flagged “Arc” as an alternate form of an inappropriate term, triggering a full phrase block when combined with “Raiders”.

A similar incident occurred in the EA App chat earlier in August, where “Arc Raiders” was temporarily replaced with hashtags. The EA Arc Raiders censorship continued until August 6, after which the company patched out the censorship from its filters. Users speculate that both EA and Activision use the same chat moderation system, which led to the false flag.

Meanwhile, Embark Studios, founded by ex-DICE developers behind the Battlefield series, leaned into the controversy with a tongue-in-cheek post: “We’re still on track to release *** ******* on October 30th!” along with a censored promotional page.

The free publicity has amplified hype for Embark’s Arc Raiders, a third-person sci-fi extraction shooter that is slated for an Open Beta from October 17 to 20 and a full release planned for October 30, 2025.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7, on the other hand, is set for a full release on November 14, 2025. Treyarch kicked off an open beta to collect feedback on a new playlist, with an emphasis on reduced skill-based matchmaking. The test period will continue till October 9 to include a new 6v6 map called Toshin. Recently, Activision proudly announced that its Ricochet Anti-cheat has banned 97% cheaters, citing “This is just the beginning.”