Tweet
A new and rather major story cutscene made its debut in Destiny 2 this week. It did not take long after the cutscene was made available that an artist noticed something quite familiar.
Twitter user Julian Faylona said that it looked as though "Bungie took inspiration" from some Destiny 2 fan artwork they created almost three years ago. Many, stating the obvious, said that it was less that the cutscene art was "inspired" by Faylona's piece but rather outright stolen.
The Internet being what it is, quickly spread word about Bungie's apparent art theft, with conversations taking place on Reddit, Twitter, and even in some news articles. The artist's work and a screen from that new cutscene can be seen above, with the artist's original work on the left and the screen from Destiny 2 on the right side.
Thankfully, Bungie is righting this wrong. In a tweet posted earlier today, the Destiny 2 team at Bungie say that the art was used as a reference by an external vendor. That external vendor believed it to be official Bungie art. It seems like an innocent enough mistake and one that is probably more common than most people realize.
Bungie says that they have reached out to the artist to apologize to them, add credit to them, and to compensate them for their work.
Another art "oops" from Bungie happened less than a month ago. An icon for one of the newest Exotic weapons was almost a one for one copy of the Bassnectar logo. The only difference was that the icon used in Destiny 2 was turned 90 degrees. Bungie quickly updated the icon shortly after the discovery was made. Another case of fan art being used without prior consent happened back in September 2021. Bungie also acknowledged that specific mix up and kept the art in after getting the original artist's permission.
