Bungie confirmed its recent alpha for Marathon used decals stolen from an artist, after the developer was accused of lifting assets from posters designed in 2017.
Artist Antireal pointed out the use of her artwork in-game on social media, while tagging in the developer and franchise art director Joseph Cross.
“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, but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution,” Antireal said.
“In 10 years I have never made a consistent income from this work and I am tired of designers from huge companies moodboarding and parasitising my designs while I struggle to make a living,” added Antireal.
Bungie responded via its MarathonDevTeam account on Twitter, taking responsibility for the incident. “We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorised use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game.”
The studio said this issue was unknown by its existing art team, and that it’s reached out to “do right” by the artist.
“As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission,” the account said.
“To prevent similar issues in the future, we are conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to document all artist contributions.”
Bungie has been accused of lifting artwork four times now. Last year, an artist accused the studio of borrowing its designs for a Destiny 2 Nerf gun, which was amicably resolved.
In 2023, an artist pointed out the similarities between their artwork and a piece that appeared in a Destiny 2 cutscene. Bungie resolved this by compensating and crediting the artist.
In 2021, fan art was used in a trailer, which Bungie again resolved after reaching out to the artist in question.