Marathon's secretly been telling you to "kill for mommy," community lead salutes the first thirsty players to discover the hidden message

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Will you kill for mommy? I beg that you do not tell me the answer to that question, but it seems Bungie has been posing it to Marathon players for some time now. Dataminers have recently taken a close look at some of the weapon skins included in the Marathon reward pass to discover a bit of subliminal messaging, and the game's community lead is having a great deal of fun with the reactions.

The big theme in the first Marathon reward pass is Achromatic Rush, a series of black-and-white cosmetics culminating in a skin for Vandal. Players have taken to calling this skin "Goth Vandal," and it appears that Bungie was out ahead of the memes. The Achromatic Rush weapon skin for the Misriah includes a message on the shell casing that reads "kill for mommy."

You're unlikely to notice the "kill for mommy" message during the course of normal gameplay, but there's no mistaking it in the texture rips provided by meloneslada on Twitter. Some users are positing the possibility that this is a reference to Friday the 13th, and, like, I guess that's a partial possibility, but come on. You can't put the word "mommy" this close to a goth girl in 2026 without understanding the thirst-trapping implications.

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Well, you heard the shell casing 👏😤 https://t.co/zYUGGMnCxlApril 21, 2026

"Well, you heard the shell casing," Marathon community lead Andy Salisbury says on Twitter in response to the discovery.

"Look if you don't have this on your shell casings, I'm kind of worried about you," Salisbury adds. That prompted one fan to declare "Goth Vandal is mommy and I will KILL for mommy," with five saluting emojis to drive the point home. To that, Salisbury says, "See, the kids are absolutely alright."

Marathon's Runners don't have the same sort of obvious horndog appeal as, say, the casts of hotties that have powered the skin shops in Overwatch and Marvel Rivals for years. But you can never deny the internet's willingness to simp for anything even vaguely shaped like a goth girl, and I'm certain that Vandal has just earned a new army of devoted stans amid all this.

Bungie makes Marathon less vicious as players keep leaving: update adds free solo self-revives, a way to revive enemy runners, and a "stay together" option for good teammates.

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Dustin BaileyStaff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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