Bungie Confirms Deeper Audit Into Marathon Artwork; Would “Love” to Work With Antireal
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In case you missed the news, Bungie is in serious trouble. Yesterday, news broke that their upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon, had featured artwork stolen from an independent artist. Shortly after the discovery, the studio took to social media to apologize and clarify how this happened.
Now, they’ve opened up more on the matter, confirming what else is being done at the studio and reaching out to the artist, leaving the doors open for some opportunities.
Bungie Is Confident that a Majority of Art Assets are Original, Despite This Not Being the First Time
As revealed during today’s developers’ stream, the game’s art directors took a bit of time to discuss the recent discoveries of their game featuring art from an independent artist, AntiReal. They once again reiterated the statement they released earlier, about the assets being included by a former Bungie artist, unknown to the team, and where it actually came from.
“I wanted to take a minute to talk about some of the events from yesterday” Joseph Cross, the art director for Marathon sad “I wanted to make sure I get this message right it, it came to our attention that an artist who worked on Marathon in the early stages of pre-production took a number of graphic elements from a graphic designer without permission or acknowledgement and placed them on a decal sheet that was then checked in in 2020. The decal sheet included icons and text elements. These elements ended up in our alpha build and there’s absolutely no excuse for this oversight and we are working on and 100% committed to our review process to ensure instances like this don’t happen again on Marathon or at Bungie”
Cross then says that they’ve reached out to AntiReal, offering a further apology to her, both privately and publicly during the stream. He was later asked in the stream, why doesn’t the studio just hire her, to which he says that they would love to work with her when the opportunity presents itself, which was part of the reason why they reached out to communicate.
For those wondering just how much this might set the studio back, from what Cross said during the stream, the assets derived from AntiReal’s work are relatively small, and he feels confident that a majority of the assets they have are original and created internally by the team. They are doing a very broad audit on the decals in the game, as well as auditing every piece of art contributed by the unnamed former artist.
Undoubtedly, this news has further tarnished the studio’s name, as it’s also not the first time they’ve been caught using art without the original artist’s permission. Fans have taken to social media since the discovery to voice their disappointment in the studio, with the recent stream being flooded with comments and harsh words towards the studio.
I’m just glad that they acknowledged the stolen work. However, whether there’s truth to their not knowing it was her art in the first place, considering how many current Bungie artists, including Cross himself, have followed AntiReal on social media, is hard to believe. Still, it’s good to see the studio has reached out to AntiReal, and here’s hoping it leads to some good opportunities for the artist.
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