It probably won't save the game, but at least justice was served.
The dispute between Digital Artist known as Antireal and game developer Bungie – centered on Bungie plagiarizing Antireal's works and building Marathon's entire art style on the stolen designs – has been settled, according to the artist's announcement on Twitter.
In the truly laconic statement, Antireal revealed that the confrontation with Bungie and Sony has now been ended "to my satisfaction," which many naturally interpreted as the artist receiving a substantial check while allowing Marathon to retain the art style.
Some observers have also suggested that the announcement tweet itself may be part of the settlement, noting its conciseness, cold tone, and its reference to the controversy as "the Marathon issue" rather than using terms like "pillaging" or "lifting designs," as Antireal did when the plagiarism was first exposed. Whether or not that's true, it is indeed very easy to imagine the settlement including a "we pay you a lot, and you stay silent" clause, which likely means Antireal won't be commenting on anything Marathon-related for the foreseeable future.
Interestingly, despite this case of art theft – the fourth one in Bungie's recent history, by the way – being by far the most reputation-ruining thing to happen to Marathon so far, its resolution seems unlikely to do much for the upcoming extraction shooter.
Bungie's internal conflicts and toxicity between developers and managers aside, Marathon's biggest issue right now seems to be that its $40 price tag – the same as ARC Raiders – makes it nearly impossible to pick the perfect release date for it.
Allow me to elaborate: with Embark's extraction adventure already drawing hundreds of thousands of players daily, releasing Marathon right now, while ARC's popularity keeps climbing every week, feels incredibly risky. At the same time, waiting until ARC's hype fades – 2027? 2028? 2029?– also doesn't seem like the best strategy because, let's be honest here, can Bungie really afford to wait that long?
So here's the unfortunate situation Marathon and its creators find themselves in: can't be released right now because everyone's playing ARC Raiders, can't be delayed indefinitely because it costs Sony and Bungie money – and don't forget, Bungie "absolutely cannot afford" for Marathon to fail. Zugzwang.
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