Once again, Bungie has been caught taking art from an artist without that artist’s permission and putting it in their games, this time with Marathon.
Artist Antireal posted on X that the Marathon alpha is “covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017,” with design comparisons showing the assets were essentially copied.
“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,” they continued, while posting even more evidence, “but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution.“
“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. In 10 years I have never made a consistent income from this work and I am tired of designers from huge companies moodboarding and parasitizing my designs while I struggle to make a living.“
Bungie confirmed their error from the MarathonDevTeam X account, which has a significantly smaller following than the main Marathon account for the game and the main Bungie account. It was a mistake made by the Marathon development team, so it makes sense to have an account that speaks for that team being the one to speak up, but it has the air of Bungie owning up to the mistake with a whisper, instead of with its full voice.
“We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorized 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 post on the MarathonDevTeam account reads.
“This issue was unknown by our existing art team, and we are still reviewing how this oversight occurred. We take matters like this very seriously. We have reached out to Antireal to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist. As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.“
This is the fourth time Bungie has been caught taking art from an artist without giving them proper credit: first in 2021, then again in 2023 and 2024, and now once again in 2025.
“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,” the MarathonDevTeam account continued.
“We value the creativity and dedication of all artists who contribute to our games, and we are committed to doing right by them. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.“
In response to a separate question about the assets being lifted, Antireal confirmed that artists from Bungie, including the Marathon franchise art director Joseph Cross, followed them on X for years, though Antireal had previously never interacted with Cross or any of the Bungie artists who followed them.
For the fourth time running, it’s clear that Bungie has a major issue with its art pipeline. That these mistakes continue to happen is, frankly, ludicrous, and it only makes you wonder where other issues might lie in its creative process.
