We were all supposed to be playing Marathon by now. Instead, the game still isn’t here after months of issues, the biggest of which was the accusations levied against Bungie by an artist who discovered her art had been used in the game without her permission.
Marathon was meant to be released in September. However, back in May, with the game already being heavily scrutinized following poorly received playtests, Marathon was dealt a body blow. An artist who goes by Antireal claimed that designs she had created eight years prior were plastered all over the game, and she provided pretty damning evidence to back up her claims.
Bungie Can Now, Hopefully, Leave Marathon’s Stolen Art Debacle In The Past
Seven months later, Antireal has now confirmed that the issue has been resolved. While her stolen assets were scrubbed from Marathon pretty quickly, there has presumably been a legal dispute going on behind the scenes for using them in the first place. The artist hasn’t revealed how exactly the issue has been resolved, but noted that, “The Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction.”
That presumably means there has been a payout of some description, but if there was, that information has not been shared, and it might never be. Bungie is yet to issue a statement on the situation, but again, that might never happen. Between the Marathon problems and Destiny 2’s falling player count, it probably wants to leave this issue, along with everything else it has had to deal with this year, in 2025.
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It’s possible that, barring some necessary surface-level involvement from legal professionals, this issue was largely handled without things getting too messy. Antireal noted at the time of the accusations that she didn’t have the money to engage in a legal battle with Bungie, even though she was in the right, and that support and making noise on social media was the only way the studio was going to take notice.
Luckily for the artist, that’s exactly what happened. It didn’t take long at all for Bungie to acknowledge Antireal’s accusations, at which point it confirmed it was conducting an investigation. It was confirmed shortly after that the decals had been used by a member of the team who was no longer at the studio, and that the current Marathon artists were unaware that the designs had been lifted from someone else without their consent.
There’s a very real chance that Marathon could be a make-or-break game for Bungie, and it’s off to a very rough start. A worrying thing to say about a game that hasn’t even been released yet. Those who played an alpha test in June reported back that Bungie had taken the critique on board and that Marathon had improved. However, that it will cost the same as infamous PlayStation flop Concord understandably has people concerned.
- Released
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September 23, 2025
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
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Marathon
