A Deep Dive Into Bungie’s History With Plagiarism

Marathon is Bungie’s return to one of their original IPs set to release later this year in September. Unfortunately, the closer we get to the launch date, the worse news gets for Marathon. The recent Marathon Closed Alpha seemed to garner mixed results from players, most being lukewarm on the extraction shooter aspect and how, besides its visuals, it didn't offer anything unique that hadn’t been seen in the genre.

Unfortunately, the artwork and visuals that garnered praise from players and fans has been found to be plagiarized. On Thursday last week, May 15th, the artist Antireal (4nt1r34l) posted on Twitter that the Marathon Alpha lifted assets from her work she released in 2017. The evidence posted by the artist speaks for themselves as they’re near one to one renditions.

Going back, it appears that some of her designs she created were also copied and pasted without permission into the Marathon ARG that was released in April. Fans pointed out that you can read her artist handle in one of the game assets. So not only was her work plagiarized but it was done poorly.

What’s worse is that several artists, including Joseph Cross (Art Director), at Bungie have been found to be following Antireal during the development of Marathon. Bungie responded to the allegations on Bluesky stating, “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.”

“To prevent similar issues in the future, we are conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to document all artist contributions.”

We value the creativity and dedication of all artists who contribute to our games, and we are committed to doing right by them. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

Bungie is blaming one unnamed artist for the plagiarism and there has been no other update over the weekend. Antireal posted on her original post’s thread to say, “I don't have the resources nor the energy to spare to pursue this legally, but I have lost count of the number of times a major company has deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or steal my work than to write me an email.”

"In 10 years I have never made a consistent income from this work and I am tired of designers from huge companies moodboarding and parasitising my designs while I struggle to make a living."

Bungie should at the very least offer heavy compensation for Antireal’s work since her designs are quite literally the entire identity of Marathon’s aesthetic. Unfortunately, this isn’t Bungie’s first run-in with plagiarism. It’s actually the fourth. 

Last year, Bungie admitted that they used fan art when designing a Destiny 2 Nerf gun only after they were called out by the original artist, Tofu Rabbit. The day after the Ace of Spades Nerf gun was released, Tofu posted irrefutable evidence that Bungie ripped off their design that was commissioned back in 2015. 

A commission NOT for Bungie. Tofu was able to point out how nothing was altered on the design and even showed the details of how Bungie copy-pasted the whole design, with exact brush strokes and scratches in the same spots. This situation was resolved with Bungie releasing almost an identical statement to Tofu as they did with Antireal saying, “We've investigated this with our partner Nerf. We are currently in contact with the artist to make sure they are compensated and credited for their incredible artwork."

Tofu followed up with a post thanking the public for helping spread the word and that Bungie and their CM had been incredibly kind and professional. No details on the compensation were revealed but if the artist was happy with the conclusion it was probably a fair resolution.

Then, on October 2nd last year, Matthew Kelsey Martineau filed a lawsuit against Bungie for lifting his writings for the story of Destiny’s Red Legion. The lawsuit read, “The Red Legion forms the backbone for the entire storyline that unfolds in the infringement game of Destiny 2. Although Destiny 2 offers an immersive and thrilling gaming experience that keeps players on the edge of their seats, the game is based directly on Martineau's source work.”

The lawsuit listed hefty details on the story similarities of the Red War and Curse of Osiris and Martineau demanded a trial by jury and damages for copyrights. A year later, there’s been an update in this lawsuit. Bungie attempted to dismiss this case by sending in Destiny 2 gameplay videos from the Red War campaign, pages from the Destinypedia wiki, and an affidavit from game director Tyson Green.

The argument with presenting these pieces was to show accurate reproductions of the accused video campaigns since the alleged plagiarized content had been vaulted so could not be used as comparison. 

The affidavit from Green read that the Red War and Curse of Osiris couldn’t be run because their outdated code doesn’t work with Destiny 2’s framework which is why it’s been vaulted. Martineau, rightfully, argued that the actual expansions should be used as evidence for comparison rather than pages from the Destiny wiki and game trailers.

The court dismissed Bungie’s motion to dismiss the case. “The Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged the elements of an action for copyright infringement,” said the court.

Back in 2023, Bungie was under scrutiny for stealing another artist’s designs for a cutscene in Destiny 2: The Final Shape. Julian Faylona, otherwise known as Elementj21, posted a Twitter thread on the exact asset that was taken from them and used in the cutscene. Fans were especially upset over this since the cutscene was a majorly important one to the lore.

Streamer Zavalr posted, “The cutscene where we find out the origin of one of the most important characters in Destiny history has plagiarism. Plagiarism.” Faylona was more than generous with Bungie, being excited their artwork had been used for the game, but Bungie followed up and stated yet again that they were working with the artist to “make things right.”

“Bungie has reached out to ELEMENTJ21 about the art piece from this week's cutscene and are planning to compensate and credit them for their work. We discovered that an external vendor that helped to create this cutscene mistakenly used this art as a reference, assuming it was official Bungie artwork. We are currently waiting to hear back from the artist to take the necessary steps to remedy this situation."

In 2021, Relay314’s fanart was used in The Witch Queen’s trailer and, you guessed it, without permission. The art piece had been submitted for Bungie’s fan art showcase but instead showed up in an official game trailer without any credit or mention of Relay314. Cosmo, the principal community manager at bungie, posted a response to this situation.

“There was a mix-up when creating this post and @relay314's art was accidentally used. We have reached out to them and got permission to use their work and are now crediting them for this awesome community depiction of Xivu Arath.”

It’s not known whether or not Relay got paid for their work but it seems highly doubtful they did.

Bungie’s repeated cases of plagiarism are exhausting at this point. There hasn’t been an update on the Marathon situation but hopefully Bungie makes it right, again, with the artist.