I’ve lost all respect for Bungie at this point. Their games have been shit for a few years, but this is a really low bar…
Apparently it’s a former Bungie artist that included stolen work in internal assets and didn’t tell anyone.
For once, it sounds like a genuine “oh f*k”, and not corporate excuses. What we can hope is that the actual artist behind the art gets compensated for their work, and that the assets get replaced if they ask for it.
That would be a credible excuse if this were the first time it happened. But it’s at least the fourth time it has happened. They seem to be going for the “steal first and then ‘do right by the artist’ if they get caught” route of design 🙄
Who knows what else they’ve lifted from artists that just haven’t caught on yet.
Yeah, it’s a really shitty pattern. Unfortunate, I was kinda looking forward to Marathon despite the drama.
except that’s literally always the excuse. i don’t remember any company coming out and saying “yeah it was a corporate decision to steal designs to cut corners”. literally always either a former employee or an employee who has been promptly fired.
Recent official Twitch stream https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GrGjLnGXwAE0hdV.jpg
Update 5/16/2025 12:56 a.m. ET: Bungie has responded and blamed the incident on a former employee. The studio says it’s reaching out to the artist in question and conducting a full review of its in-game assets for Marathon. “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,” the studio posted on X.
Save a click: The side by side comparisons
A monied entity who likes to steal of one’s labour. Shocking.
Not a first time for Bungie. Done over and over with Destiny.
Are they going to try to blame this on Alberto Mielgo?
Is this because they use art they find as filler and then forget to replace it, or is it because a graphic designer who was hired on salary just decided to explicitly take someone else’s work as their paycheck? The first option seems the most likely, since I’m sure their own artists are quite capable.
Back when I was in my mid 20s, I was big into the car scene and Scion was super hot, specifically the Tc. They had a two page ad in a magazine that looked eerily familiar, was a swamp dragon type creature rising from bottom of the pages, arms spreading out some trees, something like that, I don’t remember the details.
Anyway, I had seen it before, went searching for it and it was found on DeviantArt, nearly identical. Slightly different creature design, but everything else was unmistakable.
I emailed the designer letting him know what I found, he was from Europe, had never heard of Scion and was very confused as why they took his art. I think he was younger, didn’t know what if anything, he could do. But it was clearly stolen. I had bookmarked/saved his art years before I saw the ad, completely unrelated.
This isn’t new at all, and sometimes very hard to prove unfortunately.
Found the original swamp dragon- https://www.deviantart.com/reeks/art/Swamp-Dragon-482025
Quirex 4 life.
(But seriously, they thought no one would notice the direct copying… delusional.)
Feisar represent…
I immediately thought of Wipeout too, loved the art design so much. I need to look at that artist’s work… (and apparently Marathon too)
Honestly to me this claim seems like a stretch. This artist is not the first person to do these kind of high contrast futuristic acid graphics either.
And then things like claiming the double chevrons, symbols in boxes and “aleph” (which is a marathon thing to begin with) next to some text are directly lifted from their designs when they are also common design elements as well, all just seems like someone trying to milk some fame out of this.
And also you famously can’t copyright an artsyle.
Edit: after going through the thread and seeing higher quality images, I take all this back. The symbols in the boxes and the aleph text are litterally exactly the same, this is stealing.
Oh good, you edited your post.
