Bungie Responds to Stolen Art Allegations in Marathon

This week, an artist going by Antireal took to Twitter/X to announce that several assets in the Marathon Alpha test were directly lifted from poster designs that she’d worked on and released years ago. Antireal went on to provide pretty concrete evidence and comparisons between in-game screenshots and her work in subsequent tweets.

From the images, it’s certainly undeniable that the assets were a direct copy of Antireal’s designs.

“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,” says Antireal. “But clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution.” Antireal further stated that she does not have the resources or energy to spare to pursue this legally.

Since then, Bungie has responded to the stolen art allegations in Marathon. The company stated that upon investigating the issue, they’ve confirmed that this was the doing of a former Bungie artist, who included the stolen assets in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game.

Bungie went on to state that the existing art team was unaware of this issue, and they’re still looking into how this oversight could’ve occurred. “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 said.

It’s worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time Bungie has been accused of using stolen art in their games. Back in 2021, Bungie used fan art of Xivu Arath in a trailer for Destiny 2‘s Witch Queen expansion, and a similar incident happened for a Destiny 2 cutscene in 2023. In 2024, the company used fan-created designs for a Destiny 2 NERF gun.

Bungie is committed to compensating Antireal fairly for the stolen assets in Marathon. But I guess at some point, you kinda have to wonder if this is just a pattern with the company.

Marathon is set to be released for PC and consoles on Sept. 24, 2025.