Bungie responds to Marathon art plagiarism claims, promises to “do right by the artist”

Posted on May 16, 2025

Destiny 2 developer Bungie has been accused of, and admitted to, using the works of online artist Antireal in its upcoming video game Marathon. The plagiarism has since been attributed by Bungie to a former artist who worked for the studio, and the company has committed to reaching out to Antireal to resolve the issue and “do right by the artist“.

The significant drawing from Antireal’s poster designs was identified by Antireal herself on social media. The post highlights different elements from her works which have shown up in Marathon’s art assets with a bit too much fidelity to brush off as a mere homage or coincidence.

Bungie has since responded to the accusations of plagiarism in Marathon and admitted that Antireal’s artwork was utilised without permission. In a post on social media, Bungie has stated that “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.” According to the studio, “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.“

To ensure that something like this does not happen again in any of Bungie’s products, the studio has committed to “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.” Bungie has taken the “better to ask forgiveness than permission” angle to online artwork in the past, having used fan art in a Destiny 2 cutscene as well as using fan art when designing a Destiny 2 Nerf gun. In both of those cases, Bungie did compensate the artists for their work, but that was only after the unauthorised use was identified.

It is at least gratifying that Bungie has acknowledged the art theft, committed to rectifying the situation and ensuring that Antireal is credited for her work. However, this is evidently the latest in what appears to be a pattern of behaviour at Bungie where online art is considered free real estate rather than something that deserves respect and compensation. With the advent of online image generators scraping art across the internet, it has never been harder to make a living as a digital artist. The least that Bungie can do is pay and credit artists for their work in Marathon and the studio’s other games. Hopefully this promised thorough review will ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

Marathon will release on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on the 24th of September 2025.