Bungie Addresses Marathon Art Plagiarism Controversy

Bungie’s been catching heat over plagiarism claims tied to its upcoming game Marathon, but that didn’t stop the studio from rolling out its planned PlayMA stream where it brought the issue up head on. It’s not the first time Bungie has had to address accusations like this after dealing with a similar lawsuit back in 2024 over Destiny 2.

The latest trouble started when independent artist Antireal spoke out, saying Bungie’s Marathon used her artwork without permission. She shared side-by-side images on social media, showing in-game graffiti assets nearly matching her 2017 portfolio pieces, used in the game’s alpha playtest. The official Marathon dev team responded, admitting a former Bungie artist added the art to a texture sheet that got into the game.
Upcoming first-person shooter Marathon’s Art Director, Joe Cross, further addressed the issue during a recent stream. He confirmed that during early pre-production, a former artist used graphic elements from an independent designer without permission. Those assets - icons and bits of text - were added to a decal sheet back in 2020, and eventually made their way into the alpha build. Cross said there’s no excuse for the oversight, and Bungie is committed to improving its review process to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The team has already reached out to Antireal to try and make things right, and they’re currently auditing all the work from the former artist, which has caused a delay in sharing some of the game’s upcoming content.

The story’s still unfolding, but Antireal, who goes by Fern, spoke about it in an interview with The Washington Post. She said seeing clear evidence of plagiarism felt oddly validating, confirming the unease she’d had for a while about the game's visual direction. She’d initially stayed quiet after being advised to consider legal action, but ultimately chose not to pursue it, saying the time, cost, and pressure of going up against a company like Sony would’ve made it nearly impossible to fight. Given Bungie’s history, it definitely needs to be more careful in the future.