One of the crucial placing issues about Bungie’s Marathon is its presentation. The sci-fi extraction shooter combines bleak settings with vibrant colours in a manner that makes it really feel a bit like a sneaker promo meets Ghost within the Shell, or as designer Jeremy Skoog put it, “Y2K Cyberpunk combined with Acid Graphic Design Posters.” However it now appears to be like like not less than a couple of of the visible design components that appeared within the latest alpha take a look at had been lifted from eight-year previous work by an outdoor artist.
“The Marathon alpha launched lately and its environments are coated with property lifted from poster designs I made in 2017,” Bluesky consumer antire.al posted on Thursday. She shared two photographs displaying components of her work and the place they appeared in Marathon’s gameplay, together with a rotated model of her personal emblem. A poster stuffed with small repeating icon patterns additionally appears to be all however recreated in Marathon’s press package ARG and web site.
“Bungie is after all not obligated to rent me when making a sport that attracts overwhelmingly from the identical design language I’ve refined for the final decade, however clearly my work was adequate to pillage for concepts and plaster throughout their sport with out pay or attribution,” antire.al wrote. “I don’t have the sources nor the vitality to spare to pursue this legally however I’ve misplaced rely of the variety of instances a serious firm has deemed it simpler to pay a designer to mimic or steal my work than to put in writing me an electronic mail.”
How may one thing like this have occurred? One risk is that the artwork was used for placeholder property that had been supposed to get replaced or overhauled in a while however by no means had been. A much less beneficiant model is that somebody at Bungie or the companies it outsources to chop corners and knowingly lifted the work or used it as inspiration with out compensation or attribution. Bungie didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
This isn’t the primary time the PlayStation-owned studio has gotten into scorching water for this kind of factor. In 2023, Future 2 fanart turned up in a serious cutscene for the large sci-fi MMO. In 2024, previous fan artwork was plagiarized for an Ace of House Unique decoration and NERF gun duplicate. Bungie agreed to pay the artists and apologized in each situations. The studio has additionally been on the receiving finish as properly, with final 12 months’s The First Descendant lifting means and perk icons immediately from Future 2 earlier than later eradicating them.
Marathon’s alpha wrapped up earlier this month, leaving followers impressed by the taking pictures and moment-to-moment really feel however torn on its implementation of the extraction shooter method. What’s not unsure is that the worldbuilding and sci-fi interiors are among the most intriguing work Bungie’s completed in years, a advantage now partly tarnished by allegations of plagiarism in sure points of the aesthetic.
“In 10 years I’ve by no means made a constant earnings from this work and I’m bored with designers from enormous corporations moodboarding and parasitising my designs whereas I wrestle to make a residing,” antire.al wrote.
Replace 5/16/2025 12:56 a.m. ET: Bungie has responded and blamed the incident on a former worker. The studio says it’s reaching out to the artist in query and conduction a full assessment of its in-game property for Marathon. “We instantly investigated a priority relating to unauthorized use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed {that a} former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was finally used in-game,” the studio posted on X.
It continued:
This difficulty was unknown by our current artwork group, and we’re nonetheless reviewing how this oversight occurred. We take issues like this very significantly. We’ve reached out to antire.al to debate this difficulty and are dedicated to do proper by the artist. As a matter of coverage, we don’t use the work of artists with out their permission.
To forestall related points sooner or later, we’re conducting a radical assessment of our in-game property, particularly these completed by the previous Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to doc all artist contributions. We worth the creativity and dedication of all artists who contribute to our video games, and we’re dedicated to doing proper by them. Thanks for bringing this to our consideration.
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