Here we go again. Bungie, the once-beloved studio that gave us Halo, the first good reason to buy an Xbox, and Destiny, your first experience in an abusive relationship, has once again managed to kneecap its own credibility. And this time? They stole—yes, stole—the entire visual identity of Marathon from independent artist known online as @4nt1r34l (Antireal).
Make any excuse you need to cope and feel free to get on both knees for a corporation that doesn’t give a shit about you, but that is exactly what has happened here.
Take a look:
Now let’s just say the quiet part out loud: Bungie has now been caught FOUR. FUCKING. TIMES. stealing artwork from creators. Not once. Not twice. Not thrice. Four. At this point, we’re not even talking about a pattern. We’re talking about a business model. And it makes you wonder just how many other times they did this without being caught in media headlines. We would put our money on a whole lot more than four.
The hilarious part of this was Bungie’s @MarathonDevTeam response who said “As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission”, after getting caught this fourth time. It’s like watching an episode of Arrested Development at this point. You know, if the entire script was plagiarized.
As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.
— MarathonDevTeam (@MarathonDevTeam) May 16, 2025
This Isn’t Just a Case of “Oops, We Forgot to Credit Someone.”
To reiterate, this isn’t just a rogue PNG tucked into a PowerPoint. What Bungie stole wasn’t some background element or one-off logo that slipped through the cracks. The stolen assets from artist ANTIREAL, who first published her work back in 2017, make up the entire visual identity of Marathon. We’re talking:
-
Key art
-
In-game decals
-
Marketing materials
-
Promotional trailers
-
Cinematics
-
ARG visuals
-
The teaser art
-
AND the recently released Alpha build
That’s not “inspiration.” That’s just blatant plagiarism via CTRL+C, CTRL+V, and calling it a day.
The Culpability Math Doesn’t Math
Bungie’s initial response was essentially: “Whoops, some former artist we don’t even talk to anymore slipped this into a texture sheet. Total accident. Our bad!”
Oh, come on. You’re telling us that an entire team of veteran devs, producers, leads, marketing people, QA testers, and the current lead art director Joseph Cross—who, fun fact, followed ANTIREAL on social media for years—just… missed it? Missed the part where your entire game is wearing someone else’s face like Buffalo Bill?
Not only that but this convenient “former employee” must have been pretty high up to have their work plastered all over the above listed bullet points. Like, this isn’t just some nobody artist. And while we may never get a name for the party responsible (maybe a fake one, the way Bungie’s excuses are going), the fault lies entirely on Lead Art Director Joe Cross. Because, they way we see it, he either didn’t know about this, which makes him a lousy Lead Art Director, or he did know about this, which makes him a lousy Lead Art Director and a thief.
Oh, did we mention, in addition to Cross, several other Bungie art team members follow Antireal on social media, too? And they all never once interacted with Antireal. They all just conveniently followed her while someone else on the team, who is conveniently no longer with the company, decided to steal whatever she posted and got it all the way into the latest playable Alpha of Marathon. Yet, none of them noticed. You kidding me with this? Yeah, they fucking knew. There is almost no way they didn’t know.
Bungie Pulled Their Livestream Because the Assets Were That Central
Bungie had a planned gameplay stream to promote Marathon. Keyword: had. They had to yank it and do some impromptu last minute shit because, the stolen assets weren’t just in the game—they were the game. They were plastered all over everything. The trailer. The ARG. The UI. The everything. This wasn’t an isolated incident. This was industrial-scale plagiarism with a UI/UX pass.
You can watch the entire trainwreck here:
And This Is Bungie We’re Talking About
Let’s not forget, this is the same Bungie that routinely guts fan goodwill for sport. Whether it’s shutting down beloved features, vaulting content players paid for (which is also currently in litigation for the Red War Campaign also allegedly plagiarized. Yeah, seriously), laying off staff while sitting on $1.2 billion in Sony money, or squeezing microtransactions into Destiny like toothpaste out of a tube made of regret—this company has become one of the most anti-player, anti-consumer studios in the industry.
At this point, Bungie’s leadership could literally be replaced with a pack of Wall Street index funds in human suits and no one would notice. They’re second only to UnitedHealth in the Capitalist Hunger Games of Greed™, and at least UnitedHealth isn’t promising you new content every three months before turning it into a FOMO-flavored ghost town.
Marathon Was Already in Trouble—Now It’s DOA
Even before this art-theft scandal, Marathon was on shaky ground. The recent Alpha was described by many as “underwhelming,” “disappointing,” and “what even is this supposed to be?” The hero-based PvP extraction shooter market isn’t just crowded—it’s a goddamn Thunderdome. And Marathon’s one saving grace—its distinctive, stylish art—was apparently ripped wholesale from an indie artist who was never paid, never credited, and never asked.
And now? That one redeeming quality is entirely ruined. Anything cool about Marathon’s look is forever going to come with an asterisk that says: “Hey, we stole this from someone who deserved better.”
Bungie Needs to Answer for This—Publicly and In Full
It’s not enough to quietly axe a dev and bury the apology in a weekend blog post. Bungie owes its fans—and especially the artist they wronged—a thorough, transparent, and public explanation. And they better be cutting ANTIREAL a check the size of a Gjallarhorn blast. Because even if legal action doesn’t come from her, the PR blowback is going to sting worse than getting Nova Bombed in Trials.
At this point, the best thing Bungie could do is delay the game, rebuild from the ground up, and go sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done. But none of that will happen because while dozens of hardworking, innocent artists probably contributed original work to this project, it no longer matters. The trust is broken. And the next time Bungie says “We’re proud to show you what we’ve made,” the only rational response is: “Did you, though?”
We will never know who is responsible because it stands to reason that there are a lot of parties guilty here. Ultimately, it falls on Joseph Cross, the Lead Art Director, for letting this happen. As mentioned earlier, either he knew and he sucks or he didn’t know and he is bad at his job. Either way, he needs to step down for Bungie to show they are taking this seriously rather than blaming some mystery artist that doesn’t work there anymore and likely never did because they are probably made up.
The other bit of this that really bothers me is how, during their horrendous live stream talking about it, Joe Cross made the excuse that they use hundreds of artists to get to where they are today with Marathon. Okay, then why is it that the entire visual identity of this game is from one fucking person? What did the other hundreds of artists contribute? Because it is really hard to tell at this point.
This is Going to Cost Bungie A Lot
If you consider just how far along Marathon is, at least seven years in development and only four months away from release, the game is royally fucked beyond repair. The negative impressions from the Alpha aside, going through and coming every inch of the game to scrub and replace stolen artwork is going to cost a fortune in so many ways, it’ll make your head spin. The team has to inspect and replace, the art department has to create new logos and design languages, but that’s not all.
The list of everything these stolen assets from Antireal cover have no doubt already been added to Collector’s editions, marketing posters for Gamestop, physical discs and box art, and countless other sources. Their game needs scrubbed but so does every website, cinematic, and piece of marketing and promo art. Holy shit, Batman. That is going to cost a metric shit ton. But you know what we say to that?
Good. Fuck ’em.
There is no other AAA gaming company that has been caught this many times in the headlines stealing from artists. And then these assholes have the audacity to claim its not company policy? Are you fucking kidding me? This is your entire business model at this point. And it is going to be hard to convince anyone differently after how badly you have bungled this.
