The entire Marathon and Bungie art theft controversy explained

Time of India

16-05-2025

Image via Bungie.
Although fans have been aware of Bungie's next Marathon game for years, there haven't been many specifics released about the project. It was anticipated that Marathon would finally receive attention after Bungie wrapped up Destiny 2's primary plot with the Final Shape addition last year.
It did get the attention it deserved as players were given the opportunity last month to try out the game. Despite so much anticipation, the initial impressions regarding the game is quite poor because of faulty aim-assist, game-breaking bugs, and many more. But right now, there are Bungie's least of the headaches.
Marathon and Bungie art theft controversy - the entire saga explained
It was on May 15, 2025 when a Twitter handle named @4nt1r34l first reported a case of plagiarism by providing some screenshots in a tweet. This person showed the world a series of side-by-side comparisons between her original artwork created over the years by her and official Marathon materials as well as images from the game. The artist put a severe allegation on Bungie and the Marathon team that they casually lifted his 2017 poster designs to use in the upcoming live-service game's Alpha play-test.
In a follow-up
tweet
, this artist shared her frustration stating her inability to fight with Bungie legally. She is also fed-up seeing the number of times her artwork has been stolen by big companies like Bungie. She wonders if it would have been a lot easier for Bungie to hire her rather than stealing her artworks.
Before the situation escalates to a whole new level, Bungie quickly responds to this situation. Bungie took to Twitter and admitted that the alleged assets were indeed taken from the said artist, without her prior permission or attribute.
However, it didn't take long for Bungie to put the whole blame on a former artist for using these texture sheets in game from that artist. It might be the actual case, but including someone else's work that too with the knowledge of the company itself, is quite strange.
The Marathon dev team later on claimed that they have already reached to the artists from whom those textures were stolen and committed to do right by the artist. At last, they stated that the company does not use the work of the artists without their permission, as per their policy.
All these company policies sound pretty good but this is not the first time that Bungie has been accused of stealing assets from other artists. For example, in 2021, Bungie straightway stole a fan art of Xivu Arath and used it in the Destiny 2: Witch Queen trailer as it is, without giving any hint of acknowledgement to its artists, Male E. There are other instances as well like a Destiny 2 cutscene and Destiny 2 Ace of Spades NERF Gun.
Read More:
What is Marathon? Everything we know about Bungie's new video game