Bungie’s Marathon plagiarism scandal: artist Fern ‘Antireal’ Hook Says dispute with Bungie and Sony 'resolved'
One of the most controversial digital art plagiarism stories of 2025 involving Bungie’s Marathon has taken a turn for the better. Scottish artist Fern Hook, better known as Antireal, announced that her dispute with Bungie over the unauthorized use of her artwork has been resolved to her satisfaction.
In a recent post on X, Hook shared an update, stating, “The Marathon art issue has been resolved with Bungie and Sony Interactive Entertainment to my satisfaction,” marking an end to the plagiarism scandal that unfolded amid Marathon’s reveal.
To provide context, the issue came to light when Hook noticed familiar assets from her 2017 poster designs adorning environments in Marathon’s alpha build, which Bungie presented in a spring livestream.
Hook took to X, tagged art director Joseph Cross, and posted side-by-side comparisons of her graphic design work and text elements, copied and pasted into the game. Back then, Hook said, “The Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs I made in 2017.”
Bungie’s Joseph Cross took no time to respond, and confirmed that Hook’s claims were accurate and that a former pre-production artist had “taken several graphic elements from a graphic designer without permission or acknowledgement, and then placed them on a decal sheet that was then checked in.”
The gaming community was outraged, with discussions emerging over Marathon’s plagiarism controversy. To mitigate the backlash, Bungie yanked all gameplay footage from its next livestream and conducted an internal review to strip any “inappropriately sourced” art from the game.
Cross also issued a heartfelt apology, stating, “There’s absolutely no excuse for this oversight, and we are working on and are 100% committed to a review process to ensure that instances like this don’t happen again at Bungie.”
Cross continued, “I know how unfair this feels, and we’re doing everything we can to make this right. Her work is fantastic, and we clearly share a mutual appreciation for a specific genre of graphic design, and I’m excited to have folded that into our style in general.”
Despite this, the exact agreement between Hook, Bungie, and Sony is undisclosed. It is also important to note that Bungie and Sony haven’t issued a public statement on the matter's resolution to date.
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