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The First Descendant has barely been out a week, but it didn't take that long for players familiar with Bungie's Destiny 2 to see some striking similarities between the in-game icons used in both games.
Forbes writer Paul Tassi (thanks, VGC) highlighted the issue, as well as noting instances of similar weapon designs, namely TLD's Different Dream and D2's IKELOS series. In the image below (created by Tassi), you can see a smattering of icon examples and judge for yourself:
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PC Gamer did some deeper digging, and as is often the case, there's a little more to the story than it first appears, and intriguingly, it opens an entirely new can of worms. Obviously, with Nexon swimming in the same waters as Bungie, these similarities would always be noticed, so what happened?
The First Descendant appears to use "free-to-use" icons from a website called Iconduck. It hosts a repository of "free open source icons and illustrations" that it claims "can be used on your website, branding and designs" for use in "both personal and commercial purposes and projects." Admittedly, we write about video games for a living, but the legality of that last seems dubious at best, at least according to Bungie.
For example, Iconduck has a Destiny collection, which cites Tom Chapman as the designer. Chapman designed Bungie's Bray.tech websites for Destiny 2 and was tagged on Twitter to try and get to the bottom of things. He said he doesn't want his work used this way because the designs have been modified and aren't even his own.
It's a pretty weird situation. Nexon has its artists and presumably a AAA budget, so why was dubious, free iconography used? Did no one on the development team recognise the similarities between these symbols, or did they think it was fair use? PC Gamer has reached out to Bungie, Nexon, and Iconduck for comment, and we'll keep an eye on this story as it develops. Let us know your thoughts on this affair in the comments section below.
[source forbes.com, via videogameschronicle.com, pcgamer.com]
Comments 10
Every looter shooter tries to be the next Destiny but this takes it too far lol. The worst part is they can make new icons in a couple hours (probably terrible uninspired icons) and update them and there won't be consequences.
Tom is right about open source. There are people who work for the love to contribute and there are people who only rip off someone else work and post it for relevance and money.
The most unoriginal game ever ends up using other people’s work. Quelle surprise.
@Kahyl Adam it's the first descendant, not the last.
These icons can be used as placeholders for now, maybe get changed in future. Like if the game is successful, they could have the option to spend a little extra on designing new icons.
@Mortal If they don't change these icons before Bungie notices, it may very well be The Last Descendant.
I played an hour and uninstalled, doesn't hold a candle to destiny 2 and the visuals (especially character models) don't look so great.
It's just icons for UI and with the game took inspiration from Warframe / Destiny, the similarity bound to happen. The same with Palworld and Pokemon or why fighting games has characters who can do similar moves with Ryu. So no big deal really.
I suspect these were initially used as first pass placeholders, then forgotten about and never updated, that has happened several times before. E.g. Uncharted 4’s trailer had AC4: Black Flags map in it. That makes the most sense to me.
Though there is some merit in having a sort of standardised icon design and UI elements that players can instantly recognise.
Realistically, as Nexon used a freeware icon pack, they currently don't need to do anything - if Bungie want to protect their assets, they'd need to go after Iconduck for infringement. If they're successful there, they could ask for it to be ruled that anyone using the icons needs to change. Bungie do not have course to pursue Nexon directly.
And @Khayl Adam I appreciate that you changed the "last" in the article title to "first", but there's still a "last" in the fourth paragraph.
@PuppetMaster I think that's not the issue here what you think stealing it almost copied art is a big no no.
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