The intense, glitched-out, typography-forward look of Bungie's upcoming extraction shooter Marathon is one in all its defining options. Because it seems, it's additionally partially plagiarized, in response 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 regarded just like her unique paintings on Could 15.
"Bungie is after all not obligated to rent me when making a recreation that pulls overwhelmingly from the identical design language I’ve refined for the final decade," Hook wrote on X, "however clearly my work was ok to pillage for concepts and plaster throughout their recreation with out pay or attribution."
the Marathon alpha launched not too long ago and its environments are lined with belongings lifted from poster designs i made in 2017.@Bungie @josephacross pic.twitter.com/0Csbo48Jgb
— N² (@4nt1r34l) Could 15, 2025
Hook's posts are pretty damning, figuring out apparent areas in Marathon's alpha map that characteristic solely calmly altered variations of her unique work. She turned conscious of the difficulty when the alpha initially launched in April 2025, according to The Washington Post, however stored quiet till now as a result of she was suggested to hunt authorized motion. Hook finally determined to submit concerning the difficulty as a result of she doesn't "have sufficient time or cash to fly out to the US to pursue an unwinnable courtroom 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 crew's information. The corporate is "conducting an intensive overview of [its] in-game belongings" and has additionally reached out to Hook to "talk about the difficulty" additional.
As Eurogamer notes, this isn't the primary time Bungie has been accused of lifting the work of different artists. The developer was accused of doing the identical factor a number of instances in the course of the improvement of Future 2 and its varied expansions.
Because the recreation continues to be in improvement, it's 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's when Marathon is meant to launch on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Collection X/S.
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