Fans Discuss Marathon Developer Bungie's Future After Yet Another Plagiarism Row Rocks Studio: 'Make No Mistake, This Is An Existential Struggle For Bungie At This Point'

As Destiny 2 developer Bungie scrambles to retrieve its estimation aft yet different autarkic creator accused the workplace of "lifting" their artwork successful Marathon, the assemblage astir the developer is wondering what's next.

Last week's accusation prompted an "immediate investigation" and acknowledgement from the workplace that a "former Bungie artist" had so utilized Fern Hook's enactment without compensation oregon credit.

Then, connected Friday night, Marathon crippled manager Joe Ziegler and creation manager Joe Cross apologized connected a painfully uncomfortable livestream that featured nary Marathon creation oregon footage astatine each arsenic the squad was "still scrubbing each of our assets to marque definite that we are being respectful of the situation."

Since then, players person been trying to untangle who the "former artist" is (if determination adjacent is one, arsenic immoderate are wondering), with immoderate reporting they "just consciousness hollow." Others wonderment whether Marathon tin inactive win astatine all, and what a "flop" would mean for the storied studio.

"The crippled went from mixed/negative reception to PLAGIARISM_WILL_MAKE_ME_GOD, 4 months from motorboat successful the eyes of the larger gaming community. If they don't hold it, it's 100% DOA," suggested 1 player. "If the crippled does successful information die, we're talking implicit $100 million+ mislaid (probably a gross underestimate for a AAA game/studio). So yeah, truly bad.

"Make nary mistake, this is an existential conflict for Bungie astatine this point."

"I deliberation it releases to a precise lukewarm reception, akin to the Destiny enlargement successful July," hypothesized another. "It volition past til January for progressive updates, enactment successful attraction mode til astir summertime 2026, past unopen down with Bungie yet absorbed into Sony."

"We person nary mode of knowing, and aft the Concord situation, I’m definite Sony isn’t taking immoderate of this lightly," reminded idiosyncratic else. The "Concord situation" they notation to is Firewalk Studios' online leader shooter, which was infamously pulled from merchantability little than 2 weeks aft motorboat past year. Its motorboat was thing abbreviated of disastrous, with analysts telling IGN it has apt sold arsenic fewer arsenic 25,000 units. It debuted to a desperately debased 697 highest concurrent players connected Steam, a fig that made the 12,786 players of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League — which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery brag David Zaslav — look impressive.

In a antithetic thread, a instrumentality reflected connected Destiny lore YouTuber My Name is Byf's fantabulous video summary of the situation, saying: "watching the video conscionable benignant of reminded maine that astir of the radical who volition apt beryllium affected if Bungie goes nether are wholly unrelated employees that don't merit to beryllium punished implicit this.

"I benignant of consciousness sick astir the full concern present [...] I privation to spot them marque an effort to [independent artist] Antireal. I privation to spot them instrumentality the steps towards making definite this ne'er happens again. I privation them to triumph backmost immoderate they request to marque this crippled peculiar (Goodwill, a delay, anything). I WANT to spot the Marathon vessel successful this artstyle, man."

It's not having an adverse interaction connected each imaginable players, however.

"Ima beryllium existent I’m excited for this game. All this creation play is mode overblown," said one. "I deliberation from what I’ve gathered successful this crippled I afloat expect the aliens to inevitably marque their mode into the game. Other than that I’d similar the characters to beryllium customizable but I expect immoderate large changes similar that to travel later. Very hyped for Marathon."

"I can't retrieve who exactly, but it was a celebrated instrumentalist talking astir however helium would ne'er copyright others' euphony due to the fact that each euphony yet comes backmost to the aforesaid source," replied another. "Basically the aforesaid main [sic] each creator has been inspired by immoderate different artists and truthful connected and truthful forth. Of course, it's not chill to blatantly conscionable copy/paste someone's work, but past again, adjacent the conception of wholly archetypal creation is debatable. Especially since determination are recorded cases of radical making fundamentally the aforesaid creation astir the aforesaid clip arsenic idiosyncratic else. So yeah, it's beauteous overblown."

"For immoderate Bungie employees checking successful here, delight retrieve that you person millions of fans that privation to spot Marathon succeed," added idiosyncratic else. Forbes present claims the workplace is successful "chaos," with morale astatine the workplace successful "free fall." Marathon is acceptable to motorboat for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S connected September 23.

Vikki Blake is simply a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's besides a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her astatine BlueSky.