About

Marathon Art Plagiarism Controversy refers to accusations of plagiarism and uncredited art theft levied against the creative team behind Bungie's 2025 Marathon remake. The shooter video game is a reboot of Bungie's 1990s Marathon first-person shooter series, with teams of up to three players controlling cybernetic "Runners" to engage in scavenger runs on the abandoned planet Tau Ceti IV.

The artwork for the series gathered praise soon after the gameplay for Marathon was revealed in April 2025. In mid-May 2025, however, digital artist Antireal, also known as Fern or @4nt1r34l, posted a thread detailing how design elements and assets from her work were directly mapped onto the environments in Marathon. The revelation is part of a series of plagiarism controversies involving Bungie in recent years, and prompted memes and discourse about the game studio's supposed carelessness when it comes to crediting and compensating artists for their work.

Origin

Bungie released a gameplay trailer for its upcoming Marathon remake to YouTube^[1] on April 12th, 2025, gathering over 1 million views in a month.

On May 15th, 2025, digital artist Antireal AKA Fern posted a series of images to her X / Twitter^[2] account comparing design assets from her work to the environmental art in Marathon. The artist wrote, "the Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017." The initial tweet received over 10.5 million views, 66,000 likes and 1,400 comments in six days.

The tweet was reposted to Reddit's /r/graphic_design^[4] subreddit by Redditor /u/aaalexssss1 on May 15th, where it gathered over 1,000 upvotes in six days.

That same day, X^[3] user @Augm3nt3_1 replied to a 2024 tweet by @4nt1r34l where they claim to have hidden Loss in their artwork, showing a scene from Marathon showing a Losslike scribble on a wall. The tweet reads, "Here from the future. If anyone doubts the theft of your art, this also confirms it." The tweet received over 210,000 views and 1,600 likes in six days.

Also on May 15th, 2025, X^[5] user @Billain posted a tweet comparing graphics from Marathon and Antireal's artwork, showing how the in-game graphics contained a slight imprint of Antireal's name. The post read, "They haven't even hid the name that good, wondering if the graphic designer is a graphic designer at all. You can add this to collection," gathering over 2,000 likes in six days.

Developments

The Marathon developer team responded to the accusation of plagiarism on May 15th, 2025, with the official X^[6] account writing, "We immediately investigated a concern regarding unauthorized use of artist decals in Marathon and confirmed that a former Bungie artist included these in a texture sheet that was ultimately used in-game." The tweet gathered over 9,000 likes in six days.

The tweet was reposted to the official /r/Marathon^[7] subreddit by Redditor /u/Tunavi on May 15th, gathering over 1,400 upvotes in six days.

On May 16th, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler and art director Joseph Cross directly addressed the controversy on a YouTube^[8] livestream, gathering over 45,000 views in five days.

In the stream, Cross asserted that the plagiarism is restricted to certain assets in the Marathon artwork, and that the style of the game overall was not lifted from Antireal's work. Cross also said that the team would be scrubbing all assets and thoroughly reevaluating them to assess if any more artwork was utilized without due credit.

Online Reactions

Several internet users criticized Bungie and the Marathon team for being involved in another plagiarism controversy, with X^[9] user @H1DE_R writing on May 16th, 2025, ">The general consensus around Marathon is "The aesthetic is cool but everything else sucks" >The aesthetic is completely stolen." The post, which notably used the Drake Helps Lil Yachty With the Laptop meme, gathered over 20,000 likes in five days.

However, other internet users pushed back on the idea that the art style of Marathon was entirely ripped off from Antireal, with X^[10] user @poellll posting a thread that same day detailing historic influences on the distinct art style seen in both Antireal's artwork and Marathon. The tweet gathered over 8,000 likes in five days.

why stuff (marathon) looks like this…. so heads up kids, do your homework, i give you a starter: after designers republic hit hard in 1996 with wipeout there were several other design studios how took up the torch, case in point: bionic-systems (germany, late 90s/early 00s)… pic.twitter.com/jAFsGbWRBL

— 𝔭𝔬𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔩𝔩 (@poellll) May 17, 2025

Search Interest

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External References