Artist complains: Bungie uses unauthorized designs for "Marathon"

When Bungie announced its new shooter “Marathon” with a trailer in April, the art design with its bright colors caught the eye of many. Now it turns out that individual design elements have apparently been stolen: The artist Antireal complains about this in social media posts.

On Bluesky, she compares logos and lettering from her artwork with identical versions that made it into the trailer for “Marathon”. She writes that Bungie neither asked nor asked permission: “Bungie is of course under no obligation to hire me if they are developing a game that relies predominantly on the same design language that I have refined over the past ten years,” writes Antireal on X. “But apparently my work was good enough for them to plunder it for ideas and incorporate it into their game without pay or attribution.”

Bungie speaks of “oversight”

The comparison screenshots, which leave little room for discussion, made waves online and attracted a lot of attention on Reddit, for example. The “Marathon” development studio Bungie finally responded: After an investigation, it was discovered that the design elements from Antireal had been incorporated into the game via the texture library of a former employee.

“This issue was not recognized by our art team, and we are still investigating how this oversight occurred,” writes Bungie on X. “We take matters like this very seriously. We have contacted Antireal to discuss this issue and will endeavor to do right by her.”

“Marathon” is a multiplayer shooter scheduled for release on September 23 for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. Like the first edition published by Bungie in 1994, “Marathon” is set in a sci-fi universe, which opens up special skills such as invisibility and shields as game elements in addition to weapon fire. The game is played in teams of up to six players, who have to complete various mission objectives on the game maps.

(dahe)