Bungie Acknowledges Stolen Marathon Artwork, Guarantees “Thorough Evaluation” Players Enviornment

Marathon developer Bungie has acknowledged that a few of the artwork featured within the recreation was stolen from an artist who did not work on the sport, promising a “thorough evaluate” of Marathon‘s “in-game property” in consequence.

For context, artist Antireal alleged yesterday that Marathon‘s environments are “lined with property lifted from poster designs [she] made in 2017”, posting quite a lot of examples of areas by which Marathon‘s artwork was lifted from her personal as proof.

In response to Antireal’s allegations, Bungie, posting on the Marathon growth crew’s account, confirmed that “a former Bungie artist included [Antireal’s designs] in a texture sheet that was finally used in-game”.

In a thread, Bungie says its present artwork crew did not know in regards to the art work’s theft, and that the studio is “nonetheless reviewing how this oversight occurred”.

On account of the stolen art work’s discovery, Bungie says it’ll now conduct a “thorough evaluate” of Marathon‘s asset pool, particularly property created or contributed by the previous artist in query (who is not named, for apparent causes).

Moreover, Bungie says it is going to be “implementing stricter checks to doc all artist contributions”, though I am truthfully fairly shocked these checks weren’t in place to start with and that one thing so egregious may get by way of unnoticed.

The studio says it is “reached out” to Antireal to speak in regards to the concern and is “dedicated to do proper by the artist”, in addition to by “all artists who contribute” to Bungie’s video games.

Bungie’s lax safety relating to recognizing stolen art work is much more upsetting provided that this is not the studio’s first time being accused of stealing from followers. In 2021, Bungie used a fan depiction of considered one of its characters in promo materials, subsequently apologizing and crediting the proper artist.

After that incident, in 2023, a Future 2 fan claimed Bungie had stolen their artwork for an in-game cutscene, an allegation that Bungie itself subsequently confirmed was true. Then, in 2024, artist Tofu accused Bungie of stealing a weapon design that they had made in 2015, and once more, Bungie copped to doing so.

I do not wish to forged aspersions, however I additionally do not know what number of instances one thing has to occur earlier than it may be thought-about a sample. Let’s simply say I would not be shocked if Bungie was caught out for stealing fan art work once more earlier than Marathon is launched.

If this complete factor hasn’t left a nasty style in your mouth and you continue to wish to take a look at Marathon, you are able to do so when it launches on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Sequence X|S on September twenty third.