Recreation developer Bungie has hit a snag with its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon. The September-bound sport and its creator have come beneath fireplace for stealing artwork initially created by visible and musical artist Antireal with out credit score.
On Thursday, Antireal highlighted the sport’s latest alpha playtest and famous its environments “are coated with property lifted from poster designs I made in 2017.” To show her level, she in contrast a number of graphics inside Marathon that look much like her personal, and contrasted a graphic sheet from the sport’s press equipment with extra of her 2017 work. She additionally famous a number of Bungie workers—together with Joseph Cross, the sport’s artwork director—has adopted her on social media for years and “by no means had any communication along with her.”
the Marathon alpha launched not too long ago and its environments are coated with property lifted from poster designs i made in 2017.@Bungie @josephacross pic.twitter.com/0Csbo48Jgb
– N² (@4NT1R34L) Might 15, 2025
“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,” she wrote, “however clearly my work was ok to pillage for concepts and plaster throughout their sport with out pay or attribution.”
On Thursday evening, after “speedy investigation,” Bungie acknowledged {that a} former artist included Antireal’s work “in a texture sheet that was finally used in-game. This problem was unknown by our current artwork crew, and we’re nonetheless reviewing how this oversight occurred. We’ve reached out to Antireal to debate this problem and are dedicated to do proper by the artist.”
Throughout a Friday livestream, Cross defined the previous worker positioned Antireal’s artwork “with out permission or acknowledgement” in a decal sheet checked in again in 2020. He then issued an apology to Antireal, saying there was “no excuse for this oversight. (…) I understand how unfair this feels, and we’re doing every little thing we will to make this proper along with her. Her work is implausible, and we clearly share a mutual appreciation for a selected style of graphic design.”
#Marathon artwork director Joseph Cross admits designs have been stolen from artist antireal
• Claims a former Bungie worker was accountable
• Fourth time in recent times Bungie has been accused of plagiarism pic.twitter.com/VC81r5iAw7
— Tradition Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) Might 16, 2025
As Polygon notes, Bungie’s beforehand come beneath fireplace in recent times for utilizing fanmade art work with out correct credit score or permission in advertising and cutscenes for Future 2, plus a Nerf gun. The studio later received permission from these respective artists and compensated at the least certainly one of them. For Marathon, Cross mentioned it’s conducting a extra thorough evaluate of in-game property extra broadly, and from the unnamed ex-artist particularly. Any artwork found to be “questionably or inappropriately sourced” will probably be faraway from the alpha construct and recreated in-house.
At time of writing, Marathon remains to be anticipated to launch on September 23 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X|S, and PC.
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