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Halo and Destiny developer Bungie is no stranger to controversies over stolen work. In 2021, a trailer for Destiny 2's expansion The Witch Queen used an image generated by an unpaid and uncredited fan. Then in 2023, a similarly uncredited image was used in a new cutscene, and just last year, a weapon design made it into the game without payment or credit on the part of the artist. And now, thanks to the folks at PC Gamer, we have the story of Bungie seemingly doing the same thing again, for its upcoming game Marathon.

Really quickly, let's get some context - Marathon is the fourth entry in a gaming series of the same name which began all the way back in 1994. Like its predecessors, the original Marathon, Marathon 2: Durandal, and Marathon Infinity, Marathon is a first-person shooter, and it is currently set for a September 23, 2025 release date. Naturally, that means that the alpha testing for the game is already underway, and it was in that testing that the lifted designs were spotted.

Specifically, they were spotted by Scottish video game artist Fern Hook, known as Antireal or N² on social media. According to an X/Twitter post from Hook, "the Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs i made in 2017." Hook followed up by saying that "clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution." Along with the claim, Hook posted a collage of images showing the aforementioned designs.

Bungie was quick to respond.

"We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorized use of artist decals in Marathon," posted the company via the MarathonDevTeam account, "and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game." Later in the thread, " Bungie said that the designs were unknown to the art team to have been Hook's IP and that they had reached out to Hook to "discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist." 

"As a matter of policy," they said, "We do not use the work of artists without their permission."

In a production as large as this one, it is conceivable that the issue truly was an oversight - that Hook's work was used as an aesthetic placeholder that was never replaced by art Bungie actually payed for. However, the fact that this just the latest in a series of missteps that are, in a best-case scenario, all oversights, does serious damage to the brand. 

And at a time when Bungie is focusing on launching a new project that follows in the success of Halo and Destiny, it's a poorly-timed, very bad look.

Marathon comes to consoles September 23, hopefully with its artists correctly attributed and paid. 

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