Bungie admits its Marathon alpha included stolen paintings

The intense, glitched-out, typography-forward look of Bungie’s upcoming extraction shooter Marathon is considered one of its defining options. Because it seems, it is also partially plagiarized, according to posts shared on the official Marathon X account. The announcement comes after artist Fern Hook, who goes by @4nt1r34l on X, initially accused Bungie of utilizing in-game textures that appeared much like her authentic paintings on Could 15.

“Bungie is after all not obligated to rent me when making a recreation that attracts overwhelmingly from the identical design language I’ve refined for the final decade,” Hook wrote on X, “however clearly my work was adequate to pillage for concepts and plaster throughout their recreation with out pay or attribution.”

Hook’s posts are pretty damning, figuring out apparent areas in Marathon‘s alpha map that characteristic solely evenly altered variations of her authentic work. She grew to become conscious of the problem when the alpha initially launched in April 2025, according to The Washington Post, however saved quiet till now as a result of she was suggested to hunt authorized motion. Hook in the end determined to put up concerning the situation as a result of she does not “have sufficient time or cash to fly out to the US to pursue an unwinnable court docket case in opposition to Sony.”

Bungie’s assertion claims that “a former Bungie artist” included Hook’s artwork in a texture sheet with out the remainder of the artwork group’s information. The corporate is “conducting an intensive assessment of [its] in-game belongings” and has additionally reached out to Hook to “talk about the problem” additional.

As Eurogamer notes, this is not the primary time Bungie has been accused of lifting the work of different artists. The developer was accused of doing the identical factor multiple times in the course of the improvement of Future 2 and its varied expansions.

For the reason that recreation remains to be in improvement, it is not clear how or if Bungie will change Marathon to deal with Hook’s criticism, however the developer has till September 23 to do it. That is when Marathon is meant to launch on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Collection X/S.