A number of days after gamers observed that quite a few icons in The First Descendant are similar to ones present in Future 2—and in some circumstances, just about equivalent—Nexon says it’s going to make adjustments to make sure the imagery “clearly displays the distinctive id of our recreation.”
The similarities got here to gentle earlier this month, and as Forbes famous on the time, there are far too many (and in some circumstances, they’re far too alike) to be a coincidence.
‘The First Descendant’ Is Utilizing Barely-Modified ‘Future 2’ Icons by way of @forbes https://t.co/rGdbfKNfJX pic.twitter.com/gGKfoTkLk9July 7, 2024
One principle, floated shortly after the resemblances had been found, was that Bungie and Nexon sourced their in-game icons from the identical place, however that did not appear to carry water: Why would a significant studio like Bungie make use of third-party icon units?
Bungie artist Lyndon Willoughby not directly however unmistakably shot down that concept, writing on Twitter that “Bungie icon artists are a super-crew of gifted of us with authentic concepts and sharp instincts.”
The state of affairs acquired even stranger when the presumed supply of the icons, a “free open supply icons and illustrations” repository known as Iconduck, was discovered to offer icons from Future and quite a few different video games to be used in each private and business tasks. The location accommodates 204 Future icons, as an illustration, and particularly states that “these icons and illustrations can be utilized for business functions”—like in a videogame, as an illustration.
Tom Chapman, the maker of the Bray.tech Future 2 fan web site and artist credited by Iconduck for making the icons, disavowed his position in the entire thing. “A lot of the icons are ripped from the font recordsdata created by Bungie and its designers,” Chapman tweeted. “A lot of the the rest are designed by Bungie and recreated by me or whoever contributed them to that repo. I do not need @iamiconduck to make use of my work like this.”
Bungie’s phrases of service permits using its knowledge and content material for non-commercial tasks like Chapman’s web site, however explicitly forbids utilizing it to generate profits: “You do not personal our stuff, so you possibly can’t promote it, use it to promote different issues, or give different folks permission to make use of it.”
After a number of days of silence, Nexon has now acknowledged the similarities and says the icons will probably be modified.
“The First Descendant, as a looter shooter recreation, was developed with a deep affection and respect for different video games within the style,” Nexon mentioned in a press release supplied to PC Gamer. “Future 2, being a globally famend looter shooter recreation, can be personally admired and revered by the crew, and it has served as an inspiration through the improvement course of.
“We now have taken the issues raised critically and determined to make changes to make sure that the imagery that will seem related clearly displays the distinctive id of our recreation. We’ll proceed to enhance the sport for followers of the looter shooter style.”
Nexon didn’t say when the icons will probably be modified, nor did it touch upon how this occurred within the first place. My finest guess for the second is that Iconduck is providing Future icons totally free business use with out authorization, and Nexon determined to take benefit with out correctly vetting them. How that occurred is an entire different query—Nexon is an enormous outfit in its personal proper, presumably with the sources and expertise crucial to make sure that “free stuff” is definitely free—however on the very least, as we famous when all this primary blew up, it’s a reminder that not all the pieces on the web is because it seems to be.
Regardless of these foibles, which come on high of very combined consumer critiques on Steam and our personal evaluation that it is the Future we’ve at residence, The First Descendant has been very fashionable up to now, with concurrent participant counts on Steam constantly over 100,000 since its launch on July 2.
