It takes a lot of people working hard to help create some of the biggest AAA games that get released. Sometimes studios need to outsource work to other companies while they continue working on other aspects of a game, that way things are done in a timely matter. But every now and then a problem pops up randomly that calls important things into question, like crediting people for their work. This was the case with a piece of fan art that appeared in a cutscene for Destiny related to the game’s lore about The Traveler.
An artist named Julian Faylona, also known as ELEMENTJ21 on social media, noticed that Bungie had used a piece of their Destiny art in an official cutscene for the Season of the Deep for Destiny 2. The artwork in question by Julian is called The Veil of Darkness and is based on the Destiny universe, which was shared on Julian’s ArtStation account back in 2020. The artwork as it appears in the cutscene by Bungie looks very similar to Julian’s work. The cutscene itself reveals important details about the Destiny universe, exploring the first group of people to come into contact with The Traveler.
Although Julian was excited to see something they created was acknowledged by Bungie in a big way, they were also taken back at seeing the similarities of the art. Julian shared thoughts on Twitter about the situation. “I just realized Bungie took inspiration from my piece for this week’s cutscene. Certainly took me by surprise when I watched the cutscene.” Julian went on to explain to those replying to the tweet that no credit was given and he had no knowledge of his work being used as inspiration for the cutscene.
When news about everything reached Bungie, the company made efforts to make the situation right and properly give credit to Julian. Speaking with PC Gamer in an interview, Bungie acknowledged the situation.
“Bungie has reached out to ELEMENTJ21 about the art piece from this week’s cutscene and is planning to compensate and credit them for their work. We discovered that an external vendor that helped to create this cutscene mistakenly used this art as a reference, assuming it was official Bungie artwork. We are currently waiting to hear back from the artist to take the necessary steps to remedy this situation.”
Responses from Destiny fans online have been mixed. While many expressed their displeasure at seeing another example of work not being credited by a major company, others were happy Bungie was taking steps to make things right. Julian luckily has been very level-headed about everything, making a brief statement to PC Gamer about everything. “It was totally unexpected and completely caught me by surprise. So much so that I wanted to make a shoutout about it.” Hopefully, things are settled and the proper steps are taken to give credit where credit is due.
What do you think about this situation with Bungie? Was there anything else that could’ve been done? Let us know your thoughts about everything in the comment section down below!
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