Bungie targets Marathon data mining leaks on launch day, promises takedowns for unrevealed content
The developers behind Halo and Destiny, Bungie, have finally released their first brutal sci-fi extraction shooter, Marathon, a reboot of their ’90s FPS for PS5, PC, and Xbox. However, on launch day, Bungie publicly announced that it would not tolerate any form of public leaks or data mining regarding Marathon.
Bungie stated via its Marathon Development Team handle on X, “With today’s launch of Marathon, we just wanted to give you all a heads-up that our goal is, first and foremost, to provide the experience and surprises for all our players. As such, we will be issuing takedowns for any data-mined content that has not yet been revealed to players.”
For context, data mining is the act of gamers or “leakers” using tools to sift through a game’s local files to uncover assets, code, or story-related secrets that have already been downloaded with updates.
However, these aren’t supposed to be accessible to general gamers, as the studio, Bungie, hasn’t greenlit their status or announcement, for that matter. This is prevalent in many live-service games from Bungie, where developers already add future content in patches or updates, such as new weapons or maps. The reason is to ensure a seamless content transition when those updates officially go live.
Furthermore, Bungie has designed Marathon so that players work together to unlock new secrets, lore drops, and content, such as the Cryo Archive map, which is said to be inspired by Destiny raids.
Bungie had previously been fairly lax about Destiny 2 data mining, which often leaked and spoiled seasonal events and raids weeks before the developer made an official reveal.
Despite this, Bungie continues to encourage players to share content or artwork from their latest official builds. That means gamers or artists who data mine already released content, such as character models, weapons, skins, environments, and textures, can still create and share their own artwork.
However, this doesn’t apply to the previously mentioned unreleased data-mined files, which would effectively result in content takedowns. Bungie said:
Data-mining files that are already revealed (character models, weapons, etc.) and creating fun art as a result will not be taken down. Creators, if it’s currently playable in the build, go forth and do your thing.
Source(s)
Add as a preferred