Marathon, the neon brushed sci-fi extraction shooter by Bungie of Halo and Destiny fame, was supposed to have been out by now. Originally, the game was set for a late September launch, but according to the devs, due to player feedback, a release date was pushed back to at least 2026. Earlier this year during Alpha playtests of Marathon, not only was there indeed lots of criticism from players about the somewhat bland gameplay and shallow mechanics presented to them, but Bungie was also swept up in controversy surrounding allegedly plagiarized content. Artist Fern Hook, or ANTIREAL, claimed that the company had allegedly “pillaged” her design work without any pay or attribution. She further explained in thread of X posts that:
The Marathon developers issued response to this on X confirming at least one instance of a stolen asset, asserting their concern with the issue, and promising to reach out to Hook. Although to some this statement seemed to ring hollow, because as one user pointed out, there have allegedly been other instances of plagiarism from Bungie in Destiny, such as the case regarding an artist’s Nerf gun rendition. However, it seems like as of today these grievances have been addressed properly, as Hook posted on X:
There aren’t many specifics provided by Hook on what agreements were reached with the companies privately, but it can be assumed from the existence of her post that she at least received an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. In May when this all came out, the art director for Marathon, Joseph Cross, publicly apologized to the artist ahead of any resolutions reached with her, calling the situation an “oversight.” Suffice it to say, te situation did not look good for a developer and it raised several questions about the management of the Marathon team. With that being said, however, Bungie has at least taken accountability here and made amends, so hopefully with this now settled they can focus on addressing playtester feedback and revising Marathon‘s art style so the game can be at its best when it launches. Thankfully, it also sounds like Hook got what she was looking for.