Bungie Apologies for Stolen Artwork in ‘Marathon'
Game developer Bungie has hit a snag with its upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon. The September-bound game and its creator have come under fire for stealing art originally created by visual and musical artist Antireal without credit.
On Thursday, Antireal highlighted the game's recent alpha playtest and noted its environments 'are covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017.' To prove her point, she compared several graphics within Marathon that look similar to her own, and contrasted a graphic sheet from the game's press kit with more of her 2017 work. She also noted several Bungie employees—including Joseph Cross, the game's art director—has followed her on social media for years and 'never had any communication with her.'
the Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs i made in 2017.@Bungie @josephacross pic.twitter.com/0Csbo48Jgb
— N² (@4nt1r34l) May 15, 2025
'Bungie is of course not obligated to hire me when making a game that draws overwhelmingly from the same design language I have refined for the last decade,' she wrote, 'but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution.'
On Thursday night, after 'immediate investigation,' Bungie stated that a former artist included Antireal's work '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've reached out to Antireal to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist.'
During a Friday livestream, Cross explained the former employee placed Antireal's art 'without permission or acknowledgement' in a decal sheet checked in back in 2020. He then issued an apology to Antireal, saying there was 'no excuse for this oversight. […] I know how unfair this feels, and we're doing everything we can to make this right with her. Her work is fantastic, and we clearly share a mutual appreciation for a specific genre of graphic design.'
#Marathon art director Joseph Cross admits designs were stolen from artist antireal
• Claims a former Bungie employee was responsible
• Fourth time in recent years Bungie has been accused of plagiarism pic.twitter.com/VC81r5iAw7
— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) May 16, 2025
As Polygon notes, Bungie's previously come under fire in recent years for using fanmade artwork without proper credit or permission in marketing and cutscenes for Destiny 2, plus a Nerf gun. The studio later got permission from those respective artists and compensated at least one of them. For Marathon, Cross said it's conducting a more thorough review of in-game assets more broadly, and from the unnamed ex-artist in particular. Any art discovered to be 'questionably or inappropriately sourced' will be removed from the alpha build and recreated in-house.
At time of writing, Marathon is still expected to release on September 23 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
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