I’ve had some fun with The First Descendant but I wouldn’t say a strong, distinctive art style is one of its core virtues. It’s a pretty derivative game from head-to-toe. Now it turns out that some of the free-to-play loot shooter’s in-game icons appear to be ripped almost wholesale from Destiny 2.
Forbes writer Paul Tassi rounded up some of the most egregious examples of “borrowed” art spotted by Destiny players so far, and perhaps the most brazen is a gun called Different Dream that looks exactly like Destiny 2's IKELOS sniper and Sleeper Simulant. In fact, there’s a lot of the dark, angular circuitry-look of the Rasputin Warmind tech from Destiny that occurs as a visual motif in The First Descendant, a game that also happens to be about space magic and alien hordes.
More direct copycats, however, include several of The First Descendant’s symbols that seem almost like they used Destiny 2 art as placeholders before tweaking it at the last second to provide the slightest hint of deniability. There’s the skull when Destiny players die, a number of weapon perk symbols, and other assets from the Bungie game used to quickly identify information about gear and abilities when swapping builds.
The response of some players has been to point out that some of Destiny 2's own in-game icons appear to be sourced to creative commons art. The account BungieLeaks pointed to one website that includes a symbol for an artifact perk icon that was used by Bungie in a recent season. It’s possible, in other words, that both The First Descendant and Destiny 2 are using some open source art and the former just happened to decide to use the same exact ones as the latter.
Regardless of if there are any potential legal or licensing issues, the similarities have given more ammunition to fans who feel like The First Descendant is a soulless simulacrum of existing live service loot shooters like Warframe and The Division. There’s nothing new or bad about pastiche, at least when done correctly. Plenty of games remix existing styles and concepts to great effect. Usually they steer clear of making it look like they literally just uploaded the same jpeg.
Bungie and Nexon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Update 7/12/2024 10:36 a.m. ET: Nexon said it will change the assets at the heart of the plagiarism allegations. “The First Descendant, as a looter shooter game, was developed with a deep affection and respect for other games in the genre,” the publisher wrote in a new statement to IGN.
It continued:
Destiny 2, being a globally renowned looter shooter game, is also personally admired and respected by the team, and it has served as an inspiration during the development process. We have taken the concerns raised seriously and decided to make adjustments to ensure that the imagery that may appear similar clearly reflects the unique identity of our game. We will continue to improve the game for fans of the looter shooter genre.
The First Descendant received a hotfix earlier this week to address several other player complaints about the game which continues to chart on Steam’s top 10.