Bungie Caught Red Handed In Marathon Debacle

Bungie has decided to indefinitely delay their upcoming game Marathon as the in workplace morale is reportedly at an all time low. Let's get into what exactly has been going on here and what the news is.

Marathon is an upcoming hero extraction shooter in the works at Bungie, the makers of the well known Destiny 2. It was slated for an initial release around September 2025, however things started to take a turn for the worse as the progress got further, the studio recently held a closed alpha test to allow players to experience the game and so they could recieve feedback on what they thought, the overwhelming majority had nothing good to say really. Many expressed that they felt the game was underwhelming, difficult to play solo and was lacking in any meaningful tension or edge of your seat moments, basically an all round flaccid and tepid experience. The developers obviously had to head back to the drawing board for a bit and look at how they could address these concerns and improve upon the game as a whole.

The real spanner in the works happened when they were caught out by digital artist ANTIREAL for using assets from her work without asking for permission, they never approached her for anything regarding paying her for the work she had created that they were now using or figuring out a deal to attribute her work. Most digital designers curate and create solid portfolios of their work to showcase what they're capable of and who they've worked with over their time in the field. References are incredibly important to provide legitimacy and value and Bungie could have very easily just done this the right way rather than plagiarising a designers hard work without thinking there would be any repercussions.

There are even some cases where her name is found in the game assets, the sheer audacity is astounding and this could have all been avoided had the proper routes and channels been followed, all they had to do was reach out and ask for permission to use this work as inspiration or guides. This is not the first time that Bungie has found itself in a similar situation, back in 2021 the artist Mal E had their work show up in a trailer without permission and then again when fan art was used in a cutscene and for an in game revolver skin without ever asking if it was alright to use these assets or to give credit where credit is due.

Many employees of the company are worried about the future of Bungie should the game fail to perform to the standards that have been set, if the game fails then further absorption of the company into Sony could be on the cards, this could come with layoffs of any personnel deemed non essential to future plans but that's just speculation, it's not something that we haven't seen before.

The extraction shooter genre is already a crowded house and making a game that breaks itself apart from the generic mold isn't an easy feat, at this point in time Marathon isn't looking very healthy and I'm not sure the doctor has what it takes to save this patient, only time will tell if the game has any bite left but for now it's remaining relatively mild.