An artist has come forward accusing Marathon of stealing her work without permission, credit, or compensation, and Bungie has admitted to the plagiarism, blaming an artist no longer with the studio. Marathon is set for release in September, and recently hosted a closed alpha, giving players invited a chance to try the extraction shooter, but it's now come under fire for plagiarizing specific assets as part of its distinctive art style.
Artist Antireal accused Bungie via X (formerly Twitter) of lifting their poster designs and using them throughout Marathon's textures. Antireal's work is largely in the same vein as Marathon's vibrant art style, but certain pieces of her art are ripped wholesale. She specifically highlights a fictional company logo that reads, "ALEPH Dark-space haulage logistics," and numerous bits of iconography, including a clearly stolen sequence of symbols inside boxes. Antireal airs her frustration, saying in the thread:
"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."
The thread has garnered widespread...
