The First Descendant, a free-to-play co-op targeted looter shooter from Korean video games firm Nexon, is blowing up throughout PC and console with large participant numbers on Steam particularly. But as gamers debate the rights and wrongs of its extremely aggressive monetization, one other controversy has hit the recreation.
Forbes reported that The First Descendant “is utilizing barely-changed” Destiny 2 icons, and pointed to the exceptional similarities between icons utilized by developer Bungie for its veteran looter shooter and people utilized by Nexon for its new looter shooter challenger.
Actually, the similarities are arduous to ignore. One Bungie icon artist tweeted to say it “seems like an excellent day to point out that Bungie icon artists are a super-crew of gifted people with authentic concepts and sharp instincts.” But what’s truly occurred right here?
‘The First Descendant’ Is Utilizing Barely-Modified ‘Destiny 2’ Icons by way of @forbes https://t.co/rGdbfKNfJX pic.twitter.com/gGKfoTkLk9
— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) July 7, 2024
Whereas Nexon is underneath stress to clarify itself (IGN has requested for remark but has but to hear a response), followers have unearthed proof to counsel the root of the drawback will be present in an icon database that appears to misunderstand the ideas of private and business use of belongings.
Iconduck payments itself as a “free and open-source” database of a whole bunch of hundreds of icons, illustrations, emojis, logos, and flags, and contains quite a lot of Destiny icons Nexon might have lifted to be used in The First Descendant.
As noticed by PC Gamer, Iconduck has a Destiny Icons set that features 204 icons, all open sourced with a Inventive Commons Zero v1.0 Common license. “All icons can be utilized for private and business functions,” Iconduck claims.
This icon set was designed by Tom Chapman, who made the Bray.tech web sites amongst others for Destiny 2. In a tweet, Chapman mentioned most of the icons in the set have been “ripped from the font information created by Bungie and its designers.”
“Most of the the rest are designed by Bungie and recreated by me or whoever contributed them to that repo,” Chapman added, earlier than casting doubt on Iconduck itself: “I’ve come to hate open supply… I do not need @iamiconduck to use my work like this.”
It’s value mentioning that Iconduck additionally makes accessible icons from the Pokémon franchise, together with Pikachu and Poké Balls, Marvel Avengers icons, well-known Batman icons, and many extra photos you’d think about Iconduck wouldn’t have the rights to make accessible for individuals to use for business functions.
There are numerous different icon databases that embody related units and make related claims of their use. Nexon might properly have used icons from certainly one of these web sites, akin to Iconduck, and tweaked them barely for The First Descendant, but the firm has but to clarify its course of. If it did, Nexon would then face stress to clarify why it did. Once more, IGN has requested for remark.
The First Descendant rekindles reminiscences of Palworld, Pocketpair’s controversial ‘Pokémon with weapons’ survival and crafting recreation that has been accused of “ripping off” ‘Pokémon, but has additionally been in contrast gameplay sensible to all kinds of titles in the survival and crafting style.
Typically talking, The First Descendant is a mash-up of mechanics from numerous looter shooters already in the market. There’s greater than a whiff of Destiny about The First Descendant’s design, methods, and mechanics, but then there’s additionally lots of Warframe about it, too. Try IGN’s The First Descendant assessment in progress to discover out what we consider the recreation up to now.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You may attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.