Oh, to be a young man, sitting on the floor in front of a massive television, engrossed in the majesty of Halo: Combat Evolved for the first time. There’s no denying the global and long lasting impact of Bungie’s breakout sci-fi shooter IP. It really did change the landscape – but there’s also no denying that times have changed, as last weekend Bungie was accused of large-scale plagiarism for the third time in the last two years, and that’s not counting the cases still pending in court.
You know what they say: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me four times… what the actual fuck is going on?”
Initially, there was an incident in 2021 where fan art was used in the official Witch Queen expansion for Destiny 2. In 2023, the team behind Destiny 2 caught flack for a cutscene (“The Witness”) using work from independent artist Julian Faylona without notice or permission. In 2024, not only was D2’s campaign under fire for allegedly plagiarizing the plot of it’s Red War from an online blog, designer Tofu_Rabbit’s distinct skin for Destiny 2’s Nerf Gun was also used as an asset sans permission – both of these artists were allegedly contacted an compensated retroactively. But that’s kind of a shame, as it’s set sort of a precedent for Bungie.
_
This time, they’ve been caught brazenly lifting an entire design language from 4NT1R34L for damn near the entire look of Marathon‘s reboot. Sure, some of the characters are rotated or mirrored, but it’s a generally indefensible level of alteration. Then there’s Bungie’s statement, essentially boiling down to the human-at-first quote “We have reached out to @4nt1r34l to discuss this issue and are committed to do right by the artist. As a matter of policy, we do not use the work of artists without their permission.”
_
We want to believe them, but again, that “fool me once” situation comes to mind. So do parallels with the modern woes of Blizzard and Bobby Kotick, like Bungie’s chairman / CEO Pete Parsons reportedly spending millions on sports cars in 2022. But the point is that Bungie’s ‘commitment to doing right’ is potentially surface-level at best – we almost have to assume this, with their statement boiling down to contacting 4NT1R34L before they have a chance to lawyer up.
To the ire of many, it seems they were able to yet again make it happen with 4NT1R34L stating that they were too exhausted to take on a formal case, but hopefully there’s some way to do actual right by her and not just the corporate right. Maybe the next time they’re caught pagiarizing something, we’ll have learned enough to enact some consequences, as it appears when the theft is this blatant, most decent lawyers would see it as a win/win/win. But also, we respect what the artist wants, we can’t imagine how exhausting this has been.
_
So how the hell did we get here? What even is Bungie anymore? Does Sony still think it’s worth $3,600,000? What could possibly be next? Are we overreacting? Honestly, covering this seems like a job for Jason Schreier, the author behind game development the epics Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. He does an incredible job of capturing the nuance and minutiae of the development process, humanizing even the most detested and/or overlooked aspects of the industry with facts and empathy. But for now, if you’re still reading this, you’ll have to forgive us for attempting something roughly 10% as good or comprehensive.
_
When we first started hearing about Halo in the press, we were legitimately ten years old. We weren’t exactly comprehending the finer points of magazine like PC Gamer, Official Playstation Magazine, PSN, and the like, but we sure were trying. One of the articles mentioned that the studio behind Halo, at that point a somewhat mysterious project, had also worked on Oni, which was available on PS2 at the local Hollywood Videos. We remember picking up the box, noticing it was in third-person, checking out some particle effects in the screenshots, and ultimately deciding to check out something else.
Funnily enough, Marathon (or Super Marathon for Mac), which Bungie actually started in the early 90’s, completely eluded us. Fun Fact: at one point, Bungie almost plagiarized themselves, with keen players experienced with both the Marathon and the Halo series noticing the logo for the Marathon games was heavily featured in Halo’s Covenant iconography. Some speculate that it’s because Marathon is a spiritual precursor to Halo, but in light of current events, it’s almost funny.
_
All jokes aside, the year following our feeble-minded introduction to Bungie through a magazine, the company was acquired by Microsoft and retooled as an Xbox exclusive. This meant big changes, but those course, those changes made history. At least, they did for a while. Halo 2 and 3 may have had expectations and leaks stacked against them, yet ultimately they too went on to make similarly long lasting impressions that are still enjoyed today.
But after spinoffs ODST and Reach, Bungie was able to separate from Microsoft and breathe some fresh air. There was just one thing – Microsoft and Xbox still owned Halo as a brand, and they wanted to revitalize it through a subsidiary called 343 Studios. 343 Studios was a small team, which included former Bungie staffer Frank O’Connor and a couple of managers from Xbox. Lovers of the Halo series were duly alarmed, but ultimately fans that resonated with Halo’s original developers supported them in their decision to try new things.
_
Bungie had grown a huge amount since the days of H:CE however, and that meant that even during downtime, they still needed capital to pay their employees. So it made sense when they partnered with Activision and Blizzard for a ten year contract, even if it seemed liked jumping back into a similar situation they’d been in with Microsoft. After all was said and done, Bungie released the first Destiny game, which thankfully incorporated much of the soul of Halo without directly plagiarizing from it. There were some familiar curves and color schemes, but most of it was purposeful and fed into the lore, so in the end, it was actually a reminder of Halo: Combat Evolved’s secret weapon – elegant, original art design.
It was also a bit of a shock to some, as Halo’s multiplayer setup was fairly legendary, but never the main focus. This time, it seemed like the ratio was more or less flipped, but it still worked. Then came Destiny 2, and best we can tell, this is where things got complicated. While partnered with Activision, the multiplayer functions of all of their games would take place on Battlenet, Activision’s proprietary online setup. Destiny 2 did in fact launch on Battlenet in 2017, but also went through a growth period of being de-transitioned from Battlenet over to Steam in 2019 when they got out of their contract with Activision.
_
They’d learned something, though – this time, they retained their rights to the IP when separating from their parent company, so whatever they thought should happen with Destiny would rule the course. But for better or worse, independence wouldn’t last long, as Bungie sold to Sony in a historic $3.6 Billion dollar deal in July 2022. With a third of that amount allegedly being dedicated not to hiring new developers or furthering the expansion of Destiny’s universe, but the retention of employees already on payroll, intentions certainly seemed honorable but didn’t translate to a practical reality. Bungie fired just under 10% of their staff in October 2023, citing slow progress on the expansions and waning popularity in the MMO space they intended to dominate.
This particular space, however, was changing.
_
Although Destiny had a chokehold on people who were into sci-fi weaponry and PvP arenas, but there was a fast approaching shadow in the distance: the extraction shooter. Extractions shooters are PvPvE, as in there’s parallel focus between players builds, squad goals, loot, and perhaps most infamously, buffs and abilities acquired through microtransactions. These weren’t foreign mechanics to Bungie, but the ingenuity of games like Escape from Tarkov and Warframe were starting to take from their piece of pie.
_
In July 2024, Bungie laid off over 200 more employees as prospects continued to evaporate, with the remaining staff split between expansions for Destiny and the reboot for Marathon, which actually did get some people excited. Just not necessarily for an extraction shooter.
Part of us wants to say “we all know how that’s turning out,” but we’re trying our best to hold on to hope. You’d think the same company that developed the series would point out that it’s far closer to System Shock or even Quake and shoot for something closer to that, but for the last few months, we’d all been clinging to the mantra of “hey, at least the reboot has a cool art style.” Now we can’t even have that – we’ve been admiring 4NT1R34L’s style, not Bungie’s. In all likelihood, there’s probably no more than a handful of people currently staffed at Bungie that actually worked on the original game. It’s pointless to try to hold them to those same expectations. But maybe it’s time to make some calls and see what some of those former artist and designers are doing these days. We’re sure they’d have some pointers.
(Thanks for reading! If you’re looking for more music, check out our Bandcamp compilations here. If you like us, or possibly even love us, donations are always appreciated at the Buy Me A Coffee page here, but if you’re in a generous mood you can also donate to folks like Doctors Without Borders, the PCRF, Charity Water, Kindness Ranch, One Tail at A Time, Canopy Cat Rescue, or Best Friends Animal Sanctuary that could probably use it more – click on their names above to check ‘em out if you’re so inclined. Thanks again!)