In October 2024, Bungie was sued for copyright infringement by a fantasy author called Kelsey Martineau. He alleged that Destiny 2‘s opening campaign had heavily lifted from his own work that he’d previously published on his blog, complete with a Red Legion embroiled in an “unending cycle of warfare.” The infringing storyline, however, had since been “vaulted” by Bungie, meaning it’s been entirely removed from the game. Now, as The Game Post points out today (thanks PC Gamer), Bungie and Martineau have settled the case and it will no longer go to trial.
Martineau, who posted his stories under the name Caspar Cole, says that in 2013 and 2014 he wrote “an original work about a unique and captivating fantasy world,” as it was phrased in the lawsuit. This story featured a Red Legion, with a leader called Yinnerah who—he alleged—had a near-identical origin story and motivations as Destiny 2‘s Dominus Ghaul. They are both “urged, guided and assisted by outcast mentors (scholars) to overthrow their leaders to rise to power with the intentions of invading Earth,” both part of a Red Legion fought by rebels on Earth, and both seeking to focus on a hovering celestial entity “that houses strategic assets,” said the lawsuit. This last part refers to Martineau’s Tononob Station and Destiny 2‘s the Traveler hovering above the Last City.
The lawsuit went on to list many other claims of direct similarities (some appearing more of a stretch than others), along with a claim that both narratives followed the same plot beats. Over the past year, Martineau has gone on to bring in further claims of infringement, including D2‘s Curse of Osiris expansion, and even the Destiny Grimoire Anthology books. Bungie, meanwhile, tried to get the case dismissed in December of last year with a filing that pretty much amounted to, “No we didn’t.”
This ended up not working with the Judge, and was seemingly made even more spurious by Bungie’s attempt to sneer that Martineau had relied on fan-made content and YouTube videos to make his case. He had to do that, though, because Bungie had infamously vaulted the original storylines in such a way that even Bungie was unable to go back and re-play it. It seemed that Destiny 2‘s code has moved on so much since its beginning was created, then destroyed, that it would be incompatible with the present version of the game even if it could be recovered.
This ended up backfiring, given it also meant that Bungie was unable to offer any footage of the original game to counter Martineau’s claims, and eventually had to rely on the very same fan-made content and YouTube videos to demonstrate it hadn’t plagiarized the blogger. Not only was this rather humiliating given the company’s own comments, but it meant Bungie ultimately failed to get the case dismissed as it had originally requested.
Now, about a year since the original filing, The Game Post has obtained court documents that show a settlement conference took place last week, November 12, resulting in the matter being settled. “Negotiations were successful and resulted in the settlement of all claims,” said the paperwork. A further filing explained that the lawsuit was now dismissed without costs, which itself demonstrates a big climbdown from Bungie which had tried to seek legal costs from Martineau in its original attempt to dismiss.
No details of the settlement are known, nor likely ever will be known, but it’s quite the remarkable result for a case like this. So many successful movies, books and games result in a lawsuit from someone claiming prior art, usually as a result of there being 8 billion people on the planet and so an extraordinary pool from which slightly overlapping coincidences can be found. These are usually either immediately settled just to make the complainant go away, or promptly dismissed by judges. The fact that Bungie tried to push back, but then relented, obviously doesn’t allow us to draw any solid conclusions, but it sure makes the whole ridiculous “vaulting” nonsense seem even more shortsighted.
