"The Bungie team is fantastic": Academy Award-winning artist behind Marathon cinematic says the shooter's stolen art "was genuinely a mistake," and "blown out of proportion"

Upcoming Bungie shooter Marathon hasn't been without its fair share of controversies, facing indefinite delays and an increasingly wary community – not to mention the whole stolen art debacle that took off in May when an artist noted their work was lifted without pay.

The situation unfolded when Scottish artist Fern Hook revealed that Bungie's new game was "covered with assets lifted from poster designs" of hers from years back – a claim that prompted a "personal apology" to Hook from the studio. Although the entire discussion properly unfolded months back when she spotted her work in alpha footage, it's resurfacing now as Academy Award winner Alberto Mielgo calls it all a "mistake."

Speaking in a new post on Instagram, the artist first assures fans that Bungie's cinematic short for Marathon that dropped in April – one he himself directed – "is not AI" and instead took "155 incredible people and hell of [a lot of] hours, days, months" to create. He then responds to readers curious about Hook's stolen designs, quickly commenting that they're "wrong and misinformed" about there having been any wrongfully copied assets.

"As far as I know, Bungie accidentally used a texture, mostly typos and fonts, all lost in a wonderful, massive creative pipeline," Mielgo explains. "He then exclaims, "ALL this ass it was genuinely a mistake, blown out of proportion by people like you and hungry sphincter press." I'm not sure what the last bit means… but I'm also not sure I want to. The artist takes time to conclude with praise for Bungie and the studio's work so far.

"The Bungie team is fantastic, and the work they did before us was f***ing outstanding," he states. "I loved working with them." It's all certainly interesting to read, especially when considering Bungie's own response to Hook revealing that her designs were taken without her permission or any pay. The company did, after all, admit to its oversight at the time and issue an apology to the indie artist for it, too.

Here's hoping the future looks brighter for Marathon than it has been in recent months – and, you know, that the shooter actually releases sometime soon at all, following its delay and the other setbacks that Bungie has faced with it.

Former Bungie director spent their time on Marathon "dying to create a new genre name" because an extraction shooter is "the only genre where its name is a mechanic"