After a questionable gameplay premiere and a bad Alpha, the last thing Bungie’s Marathon needed was more bad news. Back in May of this year, an artist, Antireal, accused Bungie of lifting her designs 1:1 for various decals in the game scattered around the map. The comparisons were plain as day, and Bungie quickly leapt into action with a lengthy explanation as to what happened.
“We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorized use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game.
“This issue was unknown by our existing art team, and we are still reviewing how this oversight occurred. We take matters like this very seriously. We have reached out to @4nt1r34l to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist. As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.”
Now, “doing right by the artist” appears to have happened. Antireal posted the following on social media yesterday:
The terms of the deal are unknown, but of course, the theory is that she was awarded some sort of (hopefully large) financial compensation as a result of all this. The damage it has done to Bungie’s reputation remains, and compounding this fact is that this has happened multiple times in the past with game or promotional art, sometimes by contractors, but the point is, it keeps happening. As a result of the Marathon plagiarism, Bungie promised to conduct a review of their processes so this doesn’t happen again. Though as recently as last week, Bungie stumbled into another art-based controversy when artists accused them of using GenAI on concept art for Renegades’ Dredgen Bael. They haven’t commented on that one way or the other.
Marathon promotion is starting to ramp up within Destiny 2 itself, with a current weapon ornament based on the game, and reports that future ornaments will be Runners from Marathon themselves. The game has gone through tons more internal testing, and reports are that it is steadily improving. Since all this went down, Arc Raiders, another extraction game, has blown up into one of the biggest successes of the year. There’s some debate about whether that can help or hurt Marathon in the end.
Marathon is slated to launch sometime in Q1 of 2026. It being a hit or a flop will heavily influence Bungie’s entire future with Sony, and by proxy, games like Destiny 2. No more scandals, please.
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