Bungie recently landed in hot water, not too long after they announced their plans for Destiny 2’s future, and the expansion roadmap that players can expect. However, in their announcement, they also mentioned a new gun that players can use in real life. The gun is the NERF Ace of Spades and features art from Tofu Rabbit, who wasn’t previously credited for their design.
Bungie and Hasbro teamed up to create a real-life NERF version of one of the most famous Destiny 2 guns, but they somehow managed to steal a fan artist’s nine-year-old work instead of coming up with the design themselves.
Tofu Rabbit has since come out on social media tagging Bungie and all of their design accounts, talking about the similarities in the commission they created in 2015. They have listed direct comparisons, stating that “this is not ‘similar’ or a coincidence, you can see my same brush strokes and scratches/smudges.” They also stated that Bungie did not own the rights to their fan art, with most people assuming that they did.
Tofu spoke to The Verge and said that Bungie was “polite and encouraging” in private messages, and remains hopeful that the situation would be resolved soon, as this isn’t Bungie’s first rodeo regarding art thievery and plagiarism.
While they are actively working on amending this situation, as stated above, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Artists have called it out in the past, most recently in June 2023 and September 2021. For the Lightfall incident, Destiny 2’s social media team released a statement saying that they reached out to the artist to apologize for the “mix-up” and to give them credit and compensation for their work.
While the stolen art is one issue with the Nerf gun, players face another. To be able to order the $50 replica of Cayde’s hand cannon, players will first have to unlock the Legend status in Destiny 2, which is a significant amount of work. Bungie has pledged to try to fix the amount of work that goes into the Legend status, with most returning players likely to complete many prerequisites.
However, those just getting stuck into Destiny 2 for the first time will have a long way to go and will have to invest too much time into the game even to achieve this status. Friends who have achieved the status may be able to order the NERF blaster for a friend, but it seems unlikely that would be the case.
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