Bungie is working on cleaning up a mess for its upcoming shooter/extraction game, Marathon, following reports of plagiarism. Last week, Fern Hook (aka 4nt1r341 on X) posted that her art had been used in Marathon without consent or compensation. This quickly gained attention from fans who also confirmed the misappropriated content, but not long after, Bungie initiated its own investigation into the matter. According to Bungie, the assets had been incorporated into the game by a now-ex-employee.
bungie is of course not obligated to hire me when making a game that draws overwhelmingly from the same design language i have refined for the last decade, but clearly my work was good enough to pillage for ideas and plaster all over their game without pay or attribution. pic.twitter.com/G3FbPtbPJD
— N² (@4nt1r34l) May 15, 2025
Hook has gone on to explain that multiple Bungie staffers have followed her on social media, so it does paint a more suspicious picture about how this may’ve happened. Meanwhile, Bungie is having to do damage control now and went so far as to remove gameplay footage from its Alpha live stream on Friday. Marathon art director Joseph Cross has been in contact with Hook and is working towards an amicable solution for both. Cross has further said that while there have been hundreds of artists, both internally at Bungie and externally, there’s no excuse for what has happened, and has publicly apologized to Fern for what happened during Friday’s live stream.
Via VGC:
“So to that extent, I want to send my personal apology to 4nt1r34l, whose work was used in this case. I know how unfair this feels, and we’re doing everything we can to make this right. Her work is fantastic, and we clearly share a mutual appreciation for a specific genre of graphic design, and I’m excited to have folded that into our style in general.”
-Joseph Cross, Marathon Art Director
Marathon is planned to release on September 23 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for $40. Fans of the game and its developer have been expressing concern that, should this incident lead to a release delay, it could be catastrophic for it and Bungie. It’s been reported (via Forbes>IGN) that things are not well at Bungie with employee morale being in a state of “free fall”.