Earlier this week, players noticed something odd: typing “ARC Raiders” in the EA app chat on PC was met with asterisks instead of the game’s name, as if it were a swear word. That strange censorship raised eyebrows and sparked plenty of questions about why a game title would be blocked while others sailed through just fine.
I fired up the EA app myself and found that the chat now accepts “ARC Raiders” without any censorship. Messages mentioning the game go through just as easily as any other title, so whatever was causing the block seems to have vanished.
Could this have been a simple glitch? That’s the most straightforward explanation, but it’s a weird one. No other games were affected, and “ARC Raiders” isn’t exactly a word that should trip filters. The whole thing looks kinda embarrassing for Electronic Arts.
ARC Raiders is an extraction shooter coming from Embark Studios, led by Patrick Soderlund, who used to be EA’s EVP and also ran DICE. The game has been doing well in playtests and is scheduled to launch on October 30, just twenty days after Battlefield 6 hits shelves.
When the censorship was first spotted, no one could figure out why EA’s app would block a game name. Now that the block is gone, I can’t say how long it’s been fixed, but it’s not an issue anymore.
Reaching out to EA for a comment might clear things up, but it’s easy to wonder if something petty was behind the scenes, like an exec’s bad mood or some odd internal politics. Though honestly, that seems unlikely.
Why would EA censor a game name on their own platform anyway? Maybe it was just a weird hiccup nobody caught until it was too late.
