Around seven months after Bungie publicly acknowledged and apologized for the use of stolen art assets in Marathon, graphic designer “Antireal” (real name unknown) said the issue has been solved.
In a social media post yesterday, the designer said that “the Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction.”
As of the time of publication, neither company has issued an statement about the presumed settlement and/or compensation, nor has Antireal shared specifics about the conversations among all parties.
The situation started in May around the Marathon alpha test. Back then, Antireal claimed that the game’s environments were “covered with assets lifted from poster designs” that she made in 2017.
Then, the claims were bolstered by Marathon players who noticed a key reference made by the artist. In 2024, Antireal said they hid the “loss” meme in their work 6 years ago (the meme refers to recreations of a webcomic page from Ctrl+Alt+Delete with the same name). A user spotted the meme on an in-game building in Marathon.
“I don’t have the resources nor the energy to spare to pursue this legally but I have lost count of the number of times a major company has deemed it easier to pay a designer to imitate or steal my work than to write me an email,” the designer wrote at the time.
The following day, Bungie acknowledged the uncompensated use of Antireal’s work in Marathon, attributing it to a “former artist at Bungie.” The studio said they had reached out to the designer to discuss the issue, and that it was committed to do right by them.
“To prevent similar issues in the future, we are conducting a thorough review of our in-game assets, specifically those done by the former Bungie artist, and implementing stricter checks to document all artist contributions,” the studio wrote.
Marathon has had a tumultuous 2025
Following the news about the use of stolen art assets and mixed feedback from players about the alpha test, reports indicated that morale was in “free fall” at Bungie. People at the studio put it simply: “the vibes have never been worse.”
Bungie started the year in a tough spot already after the company laid off 220 employees in July 2024 due to rising development costs and wider “industry shifts.” Then, in June, despite praises from PlayStation Studios (which acquired Bungie in 2022), the studio delayed Marathon, pushing the original September 23 release to a yet-to-be-disclosed launch window within the current fiscal year.
“We’ve taken this [feedback] to heart, and we know we need more time to craft Marathon into the game that truly reflects your passion,” reads a blog post from Bungie at the time.
While updates on the game have been kept to a minimum since then, Sony SFO Lin Tao did speak about Bungie during a Q&A session with investors. Specifically, Tao said the studio’s independence is “getting lighter,” with Bungie shifting to become “more part of PlayStation Studios.”
“No official announcement has been given yet,” Tao said at the time. “We are now doing modifications in development and, based on the progress, in the autumn time frame we believe we can communicate when we can launch [Marathon], either from Bungie or PlayStation.”
When asked whether Marathon would be canceled, the CFO said that Sony believes “this launch will happen,” with the team currently busy “fixing the problems.” Tao added that “if this launch is canceled, we’d need to do the revision of the valuation, however as of now this is not expected.”
Game Developer has contacted Sony for more information on the matter.
