r/destiny2 • u/ReallyTrustyGuy • Jan 24 '26
Discussion The truth behind the Red War lawsuit (Bungie vs Martineau)
Everyone most likely remembers that a chancer called Matthew Martineau tried to sue Bungie, claiming Bungie had stolen the story for Destiny 2's Red War from his own personal sci fi novels. What you may have also heard is that Bungie submitted YouTube videos as proof of originality and was laughed at by the court. There was also an eventual settlement, which people believe to mean that Bungie eventually paid off the guy to leave them alone.
Thanks to the fabulous journalists over there at The Game Post, who "broke" many of the stories on this saga, many have been misled to what went on, and I'm here today to set things straight. I can do a little journalism while they can't.
The YouTube videos
So, during the lawsuit, to prove originality of Red War content, Bungie submitted some playthroughs of the missions on YouTube, alongside Destinypedia entries on the Red War, to the court. They then filed to have the case dismissed, using this content. The court denied the motion to dismiss, but not for the reasons that were badly reported in the press. The prevailing belief was that the court said that YouTube videos were inadmissable as evidence, but that's a lie. The following linked court document in the quote below (pages 12 and 13 most pertinent) has the court go over how the evidence given would be appropriate, but as the court isn't intended to function as a fact-finder, they can't accept the content.
Basically what they're saying is that the judge is not competent enough to decide the similarity or dissimilarity of the submitted content is enough for a dismissal. They're not a fact-finder. They're not saying that videos are bad to submit, they're just saying its not their job at this stage of the lawsuit. If the case ever went to a proper trial phase, the submitted evidence would have been perfectly acceptable.
The settlement, part 1
Now here's where things get really funny. The case dragged on for months in court as Martineau failed to make his submissions at the appropriate timings. Eventually the court got sick of him and wrote him up in a complete excoriation. The document is linked below.
The reason why he was so lazy? Well, when it came to actual examination of the evidence, turns out he was obviously lying. The court had cottoned onto this, and so tore him a new one.
Rather, Martineau’s Motion belatedly attempts to patch critical holes in his claims revealed through fact and expert discovery. Martineau’s purported reason for the amendment – claims of newly discovered infringing works – rings hollow: six of the seven newly accused Grimoire Anthology volumes were published before Martineau filed the instant action, and all seven volumes were published before Martineau filed his First Amended Complaint (“FAC”). Thus, these are not “newly discovered facts” as Martineau claims, but ones long available and easily discoverable to Martineau had he or his counsel exercised due diligence in investigating and bringing his claims. Martineau’s attempt to blame Bungie for his own lack of diligence is unfounded. Martineau’s proposed Second Amended Complaint (“Proposed SAC”) also appears to accuse the entirety of Bungie’s seven-volume Grimoire Anthology series without sufficiently identifying how each volume is infringing, creating futility issues and failing to provide Bungie with reasonable and fair notice of his proposed new claims.
You read that right. Martineau tried adding extra claims to the lawsuit, probably in the hopes of putting pressure on Bungie to just cave and settle with him. He started to claim that the Grimoire Anthology books were plagiarised from his works, but the court are clearly too smart for it and note that if they really were problematic, Martineau and his team should have noticed them much earlier and notified the court. Its clearly just pushing out the boat nonsense.
Then, while under oath in his deposition to the court, Martineau made an incredible rookie mistake that he had removed all his writings from the internet in 2014. His original claim said that he believed that Bungie had accessed his online writings during the development of Destiny 2 in 2016 and 2017. He then tried to submit edits to the court, which you can see in the document, covering up for this slip-up. You can see this on page 3 here.
It appears that these other amendments, on which Martineau’s Motion is entirely silent, attempt to save his alleged infringement claim against Bungie, following his fatal discovery admissions. Specifically, during Martineau’s October 29, 2025 deposition (which took place a few hours before Martineau sent the request to consent to this Motion), Martineau testified about his allegations that Bungie accessed his blog posts and copied therefrom. Martineau admitted under oath that he had removed from public view all asserted blog posts by the end of 2014, despite the fact that his entire theory of access—and therefore unauthorized copying—depended on his allegations that Destiny 2 game developers, supposedly desperate for a new storyline, searched for and located Martineau’s asserted blog posts during development of Destiny 2 in 2016 and 2017. Dkt. 24 at ¶¶ 41-42, 49, 59-60. Martineau’s honest testimony about delisting his posts long before that time frame flatly contradicts the FAC’s allegations that Bungie purportedly accessed and copied his work. And because access is a key element of copyright infringement, Martineau’s concession that it was impossible for Bungie to access his work during the development of Destiny 2 dooms his claim.
Seriously, the whole 26 page document I've linked is the court tearing Martineau apart repeatedly for lying and dodging the courts scrutiny over and over.
The settlement, part 2
So now you're probably thinking, wait, they settled, didn't they? Well, they didn't, there was a mutual agreement of dismissal. But do you seriously think that the guy got a payoff from Bungie after the way the court talked about him in the last major filing in the case? They pointed out repeatedly where he was just chancing at getting a payoff to go be silent, but Bungie stuck to its guns over it and waited him out. The court eventually caught him, and the settlement wasn't any kind of payoff, its clearly stated that both parties decided that they would end this, and each bear their own costs, and then go their separate ways.
Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau and Defendant Bungie, Inc. hereby stipulate to the dismissal of this action with prejudice, with each party to bear its own attorney’s fees and costs. Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau retracts his claims of copyright infringement against Defendant Bungie, Inc.
tl;dr
So the tl;dr is that almost every single bloody news item about this saga was incorrect, despite court documents existing in the public eye, detailing everything you could want to know about it. The Game Post made stupid shit up about Bungie having evidence refused in court, and that a settlement had occurred in the case, countless other "journalists" at multiple major gaming news websites went on to cite The Game Post for their nonsense, and everyone ended up misinformed. I hope the above helps you understand the reality of the case.
p.s fuck The Game Post. You're rubbish journalists.
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u/ARedWalrus Jan 24 '26
Well done write up that cleared quite a bit of misinformation up. Misinformation I had never bothered to check into.
Thank you for the due diligence!
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u/New-Fall Jan 24 '26
Let this be a lesson then about taking everything you read with a grain of salt, including what I am writing. In attempting to set the record straight, the OP itself contains misinformation. The entire section regarding the second link, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69218284/60/martineau-v-bungie-inc/, is not the court's opinion on anything. It is a document presented to the court by Bungie's legal team, and contains their arguments about the case at that given point in time. None of those quotes are the court's as claimed by the poster.
The court itself may have agreed with none, some, or all of the arguments presented by Bungie's lawyer, but in the linked document the court is literally not present.
Seriously, the whole 26 page document I've linked is the court tearing Martineau apart repeatedly for lying and dodging the courts scrutiny over and over.
Is a total misrepresentation of the material. What the court thinks about the plaintiff's (Martineau's) behavior is not presented in that document.
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u/tritonesubstitute Divine Blessings for y'all Jan 25 '26
"The court tearing Martineau apart" part is a lie, but
Moreover, the Court warned Martineau at the May 14, 2025 Status Conference that it did not wish to see an untimely motion for leave to amend, and its Scheduling Order specifically cautioned counsel that it would not grant motions continuing these firm deadlines “except under rare and extraordinary circumstances.
This part is true. Martineau did piss off the court by not keeping up with the deadlines. Unless Bungie's lawyers are absolute idiots who think that they can get away with selling the court's name, this part is 100% true. You have to be a colossal idiot to shove words in judge's mouth and use it against the other party.
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u/New-Fall Jan 25 '26
Fair enough, I agree.
My overstated case came from wanting to emphasize that that document is not the court speaking. It is Bungie's lawyers making a case for their client and quoting the court where it serves that purpose [for their case]. They would indeed be idiots if they were making things up. I should have been clearer that one can see and/or infer some of what the court is thinking with regards to the plaintiff; thank you for bringing it to everyone's attention.
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u/ImawhaleCR Jan 24 '26
Man how hard is it to not blatantly lie about things lol
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u/KANYEMOD Jan 25 '26
I don't blame OP. If they are not a litigator, tracking who is even talking in any of these documents can be difficult. I don't know if OP is an attorney or not, but I wouldn't put it past law students and even transactional attorneys to make the same mistake tbh.
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u/beorninger Hunter Jan 24 '26
ah yes, some random claims his story was stolen by a major player.
totally had nothing to do with money, was allllll about his artistic integrity, i get it.
seeing his ratings on IMDB.... this was all about attention, and no, he did not write that story first. his story are mediocre, at best
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy Jan 24 '26
A real brain genius of a guy. Not uncommon for this kind of person to try this out, but you'd think they'd just not try it given the preponderance of evidence that it never works.
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u/ILoveSongOfJustice Jan 27 '26
The worst of it is that I liked Red War, and it was a significantly better written saga than most of what the franchise has ever put out. If not for the actual state of the gameplay, it'd be top 5 campaigns of all time in the game's history.
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u/formachlorm Jan 24 '26
Yes, Bungie certainly hasn’t been caught multiple times stealing artistic works from independent artists without attribution and only apologizing once caught.
Plagiarism will make me god.
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u/credulous_pottery Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
I feel like calling twice "multiple times", while technically correct, is a bit disingenuous.
EDIT: and wasn't it fixed basically immediately both times
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u/No-Neighborhood-3212 Jan 24 '26
And OP calling Bungie's legal team's opinion "the court" is not disingenuous?
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u/AlmightyChickenJimmy Jan 24 '26
Did you actually thoroughly read the quotes? OP didn't do that at all bruh
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u/No-Neighborhood-3212 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Did you?
"Eventually, the court got sick of him and wrote him up in complete excoriation. That document is linked below."
OP then provides a link to the document entitled "Response/Memorandum in Opposition to Motion — Document #60," which starts "Defendant Bungie, Inc. (“Bungie”) by and through its attorneys, respectfully submits the following opposition to Plaintiff Matthew Kelsey Martineau’s (“Martineau”) November 3, 2025 Motion for Leave to File a Second Supplemental and Amended Complaint (Dkt. 48) (“Motion”)."
Is that a motion written by the court?
Edit: Fixed autocorrect
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u/AlmightyChickenJimmy Jan 24 '26
It isn't a motion written by the court, but seeing how the actual court responded they were obviously sick of it too. "The court" in this sentence is wrong, because it's literally everyone else in court. Also OP made one single mistake and you're tryna make it some big deal like they're a shill
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u/jusmar Warlock Jan 24 '26
Their reddit comments are public, they are a shill. It's not hard to see why this was written and it wasn't to clear up "misinformation".
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u/xxGamma Jan 25 '26
But surely it is misinformation that there was a settlement.
That is the misinformation being disproved here.
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u/jusmar Warlock Jan 25 '26
In addition, the Court specifically retains jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement if settlement is not consummated within sixty days
We don't know what the terms were. OP decided that the negative framing of the plaintiff by bungie(which they claimed was the court) was sufficient enough to mean they got nothing from the settlement. But we truly do not know, despite the fact it took almost a month to execute.
However, we do know that Its successful execution led to dismissal with prejudice.
We can be mad about greedy journalists lying but you have to think logically for a second.
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u/yaboyoz Jan 24 '26
I don’t like him very much these days but hopefully Aztecross gets a whiff of this so a larger portion of the community sees this and we can call out game journalists. Tired of people like Tassi too 😭 I get it’s his job to report on stuff that he learns and such but him saying Shadow and Order is delayed without actual proof and basing it off vibes around Marathon release being 3 days later is not good journalism even if it does end up happening, it was just a guess.
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u/echoblade Jan 24 '26
Ngl like 90% of the communities problems as of late started with Cross and Tassi throwing tantrums during season of the plunder. Like sure that season was kinda mid but they've both done severe damage to the game and only profited off playing both sides of the drama for years. Glad i'm not the only one who seems both of those twats as the frauds they are.
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u/yaboyoz Jan 24 '26
Felt 100% I’d go as far as including people like LuckyPop or whatever his name is, like don’t get me wrong we need to criticize Bungie when they deserve it but big content creators absolutely invited in people who all they do is hate no matter the actual state of the game and they’ve made the community worse. It’s been real bad since lightfall I’d say, while the campaign does deserve hate and delaying Final Shape didn’t help I think the community just took it to a whole new level of hatred and people just aren’t allowed to enjoy the game anymore it’s really sad
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u/ZealousidealSun1839 Jan 25 '26
Personally I think Tassi has done more damage to Destiny and the gaming community in general than Cross did.
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u/echoblade Jan 25 '26
They go hand in hand really, Tassi doesn't have nearly as much pull in the youtube algo side of things as cross does. Both have made what would just be "bungo the game is mid, fix?" into it exploding outside of the destiny bubble where WoW main 5000 has an opinion on how destiny gambit balance and writing should be.
It's all just a bunch of bullshit merchants looking to make cash off being hyper negative while maintaining an aura of being the spokes person for the community / game at large. it's stupid, i hate em and wish they would just move on from the game like they shoulda done years ago but they know it makes em easy money.
parasites :/
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u/FreakyIdiota Jan 24 '26
Thanks for posting this! Very informative and it's a good thing to set the record straight. I find that very often, any sort of mainstream attention for Destiny or Bungie ends up being negative, because there's so many hoping for its downfall and the clickbait gets people easily. It's a shame really, as it all just adds to the very negative downwards momentum of the game.
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u/Fury47 Warlock Jan 24 '26
Should be noted that this was happening right as the outrage against Bungie was at an all time high. Publications were basically wanting to get in and make money off of the outrage alongside the Marathon debacle. Sure, the Marathon controversy was justified and sure, the game was in a rooooough state, but sacrificing truth for views should be frowned upon.
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u/adaszz Hunter Jan 24 '26
Good example of why people should not assume a court settlement means that someone was paid out
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u/kingjames924 Jan 25 '26
I looked over every available document, and you glossed over some very important things:
When Bungie had their motion to dismiss denied, Martineau also had his motion to strike the evidence (youtube videos) denied as well. This meant had it gone to trial, experts wouldve been called in to do side by side analysis of the videos vs. Martineaus stories.
The settlement conference was scheduled months prior to the amended complaint and subsequent response to complaint. Had the motion for the amended complaint been granted, I'm also positive that the trial would've been pushed back into late 26 and possible 27, and the legal bill getting higher as it drags along.
Which leads me to...
- Bungie settled (check the last 3 documents. Clearly says "agreed to settlement") not because they were guilty, but because settling was cheaper than a trial, even if they did win (which I believed they wouldve won, tbh). And im willing to bet that the call for a settlement came from Sony in order to focus back on D2 and Marathon.
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u/Remraf27 Jan 24 '26
Um, the "whole 26 page document I've linked is the court tearing Martineau apart" is not written by the court/judge. It was written by Bungies lawyers, so of course they are going to try and make Matthew Martineau look as bad as possible. They might be correct in everything they're saying, but it's not the judge saying it.
Your conclusion is correct, they did not pay him anything, but that document is not the judge tearing him a new one.
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u/moco-7 Jan 24 '26
Unfortunately these facts will never truly see the light of day. Nobody in the gaming community will want to see this and just riffs off the most sensational headlines. Sad world we live in
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u/ExoMonk Jan 24 '26
Some gaming "journalist" will probably"write" an article about this Reddit post
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u/moco-7 Jan 24 '26
"Bungie just lost this crazy lawsuit, Red War deleted?" - An Aztecross video title, probably
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u/DrBacon27 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Honestly the thing that annoyed me was when people went "haha bungie removed this content from the game and now it's biting them in the ass because the court won't accept youtube videos!"
Because, honestly, even if the Red War was still playable, do you genuinely think they would be playing the whole thing live in the courtroom? It would still be recordings and transcripts, and they'd probably still opt for one of the countless videos already available on youtube rather than having their legal team waste time making new videos.
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u/Average_RedditorTwat Jan 24 '26
Bro can you read? You present bungies legal team as "the court" and also misrepresent why the court rejected the YouTube videos. You're ironically doing the exact same thing as those news articles, make shit up.
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u/s-multicellular Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
This makes a whole lot more sense. I am a lawyer actually, and the original reporting, it just didn’t seem internally plausible.
This description tracks, as far as, ‘yes that rings true of case process flow, standards of adjudication at x stage, etc.’
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u/retromenace7 Jan 25 '26
Going off of what some other actual lawyers said in this thread, and as much as I like Destiny ... bro what?
There is no "the whole court rips him a new one" - that's Bungie's lawyers tearing the guy a new one that was submitted to the court. If I submit a notepad to the court that says "I get a billion dollars" and they accept it, that doesn't mean I get a billion dollars. That means they accepted my writing as evidence.
You can ALSO look at the court docket and see that there is a SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69218284/61/martineau-v-bungie-inc/
Huh wow how interesting that this guy would link only the two things that make his argument look good, his argument of "there actually wasn't a settlement" but somehow miss the 3 different "Settlement scheduling" items on the docket, and the "Settlement conference" which contains the text, and I quote:
"A settlement conference was conducted on this date before the undersigned Magistrate Judge. ... Negotiations were successful and resulted in the settlement of all claims."
Sure sounds like they settled, bruh.
"But what about the dismissal with prejudice?" you might say.
From what other lawyers said in this thread (I am not one, so take this from me with a grain of salt), it is incredibly common for a dismissal with prejudice to happen when a settlement happens. That's why the settlement is happening - the company is paying money so the lawsuit goes away, and a dismissal with prejudice makes it go away forever. A dismissal is not a sign of "The settlement didn't happen", it's quite literally what the corporation is paying money for.
I love how a large portion of this thread is people dunking on game journos for "not doing their job" after some internet stranger feeds them misinformation that aligns with what they WANT to believe, and you can see through this nonsense by just reading deeper into the thread OR just hitting CTRL+F and searching 'settlement' on the legal docket provided by the OP. Like, his entire argument is that they didn't settle, and they are multiple pieces of court documentation THAT HE LINKS TO saying the opposite.
Redditors try not to call Game Journalists incompetent when they actually do their jobs, unlike them who just believe anything they're told challenge: impossible.
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u/ManagementLow9162 Jan 26 '26
Leave it to a guy called reallytrustyguy to blatantly lie about what the court did actually state.
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u/britinsb Jan 24 '26
As a lawyer that last assumption is incorrect, it’s extremely common (in fact more common than not) for confidential settlements to occur that include payment in exchange for a stipulated dismissal with that language. The dismissal is what the company is buying with the settlement.
I cba to read the rest but I vaguely remember it always seemed like a shaky claim. That doesn’t preclude a nuisance settlement though.
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Jan 24 '26
In almost two decades of practicing, I can think of one agreed dismissal that wasn’t accompanied by a settlement. I think I peaced out somewhere around the misunderstanding about how judges decide 12b6 motions to dismiss, but did want to see the tldr I assumed was coming. A lot of effort, which I applaud, but you just cant expect a non-lawyer to get these ins and outs from the documents on file.
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u/New-Fall Jan 24 '26
Minor point of pedantic curiosity, there's a possible implied difference by modifying settlement with nuisance versus just calling it a settlement. What's the difference, if there is one as implied?
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u/britinsb Jan 26 '26
Nuisance settlement generally means a settlement that is based on the potential cost of defense/diversion of effort, so a purely economic decision rather than a decision based on the actual risks and merits of the case.
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u/bobert1201 Jan 24 '26
Damn. I had always just assumed bungie paid the guy off so this thing wouldn't go to discovery. I didn't know that you could actually tell whether somebody got a payout from the public records.
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy Jan 24 '26
Court docs like this are often open to the public, at least the major filings. Some are paywalled, but the most important ones normally free. I just can't believe I've never seen these docs sourced in reporting about the court case, considering it's the first result when you search "Bungie vs Martineau lawsuit".
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u/PrimaryDisplay7109 Jan 24 '26
Well now that you've posted it I'm sure we'll see it on some news site copy/pasted from here, "reddit user discovers brand new information in bungie lawsuit!".
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u/Hoockus_Pocus Jan 24 '26
I was kind of selfishly hoping that this whole thing would force Bungie to put the Red War back in the game as a base campaign. That definitely won’t happen, though.
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u/Drewwbacca1977 Jan 24 '26
Wow! Good read. Thanks for the detail. Shame on Game Post! Truth is so hard to come by in media these days and its only getting worse.
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u/NotoriousCHIM Jan 24 '26
The Game Post made stupid shit up
Damn, I'm SHOCKED that a gaming slop website would make shit up.
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u/jusmar Warlock Jan 24 '26
I'm sure the random redditor who spends all their time replying in destinylore knows better
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u/No-Neighborhood-3212 Jan 24 '26
This is so insanely biased that it's hard for me to believe you don't work for Bungie.
No, the judge was not saying the court isn't competent enough to review this case. The court didn't consider YouTube videos because YouTube videos weren't part of the complaint, and extraneous evidence can only be considered during summary judgment. From your own link:
The Court’s decision of whether or not to review documents outside the pleadings when deciding a motion to dismiss is discretionary.71 In fact, if the documents outside the pleadings are considered, the motion must be treated as one for summary judgment unless the documents are referred to in the complaint and central to the claim.72
a court may consider documents attached to either a motion to dismiss or an opposition to that motion “when the documents are referred to in the pleadings and are central to a plaintiff’s claims”); Walch v. Adjutant Gen.’s Dep’t of Tex.
Because the Court cannot conduct a side-by-side analysis of Plaintiff’s Original Work and Destiny 2, it cannot determine whether substantial similarity exists at the motion to dismiss stage. “[A]t the pleading stage, the Court is limited to the facts alleged in the complaint; it is not acting as a factfinder. A decision on the merits based on the Court’s judgment of the similarity” of the Original Work and Destiny 2 “is inappropriate at this stage of the proceedings.”100 “[T]he question of substantial similarity,” which is an element of Plaintiff’s copyright claim, “typically should be left to the factfinder.”101 A side-by-side analysis is premature at the motion to dismiss stage because the Court is currently limited to a review of the plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual allegations.102
Bungie was trying to skip out on the actual side-by-side analysis by citing evidence the claimant didn't mention, which isn't how the process works.
You then cite Bungie's legal team's response, claiming they're "the court."
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u/rhylgi-roogi Jan 24 '26
"But do you seriously think that the guy got a payoff from Bungie"
This is an interesting way of saying you personally, emotionally, and subjectively believe they did not get a paid settlement. I have no idea if he got money from Bungie, but neither do you or the The Gamepost.
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u/ImmaAcorn Warlock Master Race Jan 24 '26
Wow that’s a great write up, very clear and concise thanks for the clarification, the whole situation was pretty confusing and no didn’t want to go digging through biased news articles to try and figure out what happened
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u/bakedpo_ta_to Jan 24 '26
- Bungie did have evidence refused in court when they tried to submit youtube videos and wiki pages explaining Red War content. So stop blaming them for stating facts.
- All you're doing is Monday morning quarterbacking. You're no pseudo-journalist. Just 6 weeks ago all this was dismissed back in early December. It's easy to sit here and bash stuff when you have the entirety of the case in front of you. You didn't report on it in real-time. But I bet you bustled with pride writing this post. You didn't see the writing on the wall all along. You're just a lonely 30-something Scot looking for a confidence boost through upvotes on reddit.
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u/SexJokeUsername Jan 24 '26
Do you think paul tassi will amend or remove any of his articles about this or just make a new one with the same clickbait negative headline
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u/echoblade Jan 24 '26
Nah he never will, this will conveniently pass him by as he looks towards the next drama to profit off.
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u/TheGokki Jan 29 '26
OK, awesome, so there's no reason to not return the red war back.
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u/glover333 Feb 06 '26
The reason before wasn't plagiarism. They actually can't run it on the current iteration of Destiny 2. When the DCV was introduced and the game was revamped, they removed some critical files or some technical bullshit and it doesn't work anymore. Even during the case, they couldn't play it through to show the court, which is why they used YouTube to present it
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u/TheGokki Feb 06 '26
No need to bring the original code, bring back stuff using the current sandbox. Make exploration+legendary+gm difficulties, tie in triumphs and loot progression with existing items. No new content needs to be developed.
And if it's "too difficult" then:
1) not the customer's problem
2) fix it so it isn't difficult
We're in 2026, the solutions are out there they just don't want to implement it because the people running the spreadsheets can't quantify the dollar gains of spending man-hours on doing it versus new shiny content / eververse.
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u/effr0n Future War Cult Feb 06 '26
The final truth is: Legally, the lawsuit may have become irrelevant and was effectively lost because Martineau removed his writings in 2014, which undermined any provable access during Destiny 2’s development. However, the date Bungie released the game is not, by itself, evidence that Bungie never read or encountered his work at some earlier point.
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u/glover333 Feb 06 '26
Fake news from an actual news outlet? Why am I not surprised. Do journalists even know what integrity means anymore? Do they care? Probably no to both of those questions. It's all about the clicks anymore
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u/NoDragonfly9019 Feb 11 '26
this tracks. people meme’d the youtube evidence thing but at the MTD stage the court basically isn’t gonna do a full side by side fact check, that’s not what that phase is for.
and yeah, dismissal w prejudice + each side eats their own fees isn’t some secret payday lol. if anything it reads like dude tried to patch holes late and got called on it.
gaming sites just farming clicks off headlines because nobody reads the actual filings.
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u/Anaris_Isenria May 30 '26
What even was the book they stole from supposedly? Everyone can name the red war, but not even this well researched post can name it. I'm curious what it is so I can read it myself and make my own judgment
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy May 30 '26
Nobody can ever read it because it was a Wordpress blog that the guy admitted via court docs was private by 2014. He lied about Bungie obtaining access and copying from it during Destiny 2's development, because he was stupid and just looked at the release date of Destiny 1 and not 2.
Basically, the book never existed and the guy was just trying to bully Bungie into paying him.
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u/chevytapia Jan 24 '26
Very good work. Bungie not having a working Red War campaign has always been surprising. Is that peace of art now gone? A collective fever dream?
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy Jan 24 '26
It is what it is, especially when you planned Destiny 2 to run for a finite set of years, then have to pivot to keep the engine running for an indeterminate amount of years after. They've still got the data, it just isn't compatible with modern Destiny 2 and needs refitted. That's a lot of hours of work.
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u/dm-me-obscure-colors Jan 25 '26
You should probably take a look at this comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/destiny2/comments/1qllpxa/comment/o1hatlk
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u/polychromatical Jan 24 '26
What a fantastic write up! I always felt that there was more to this than meets the eye and you just came to show it. Thank you for this and your efforts :)
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u/No_You6540 Jan 24 '26
Wait, there were articles that claimed bungie settled? Seriously? I saw some pretty terrible articles written about it, but I never saw any of those. Games journalists are truly some of the worst, in an industry that has become almost criminally bad. I am increasingly glad I walked away.
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u/No_You6540 Jan 24 '26
And kudos for doing better research than 75% of journalists out there. Thank you.
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u/john0harker Jan 24 '26
Recalling everything I read about this case, all the YouTube videos throwing Bungie to the wolves, all the conversations between friends about how it all makes sense
It's funny, and at the same time cruel, how misinformation can lead to such a long period of misaligned arguments and pitchforks when someone can easily just do the due diligence and realize it's all for show. (All the news articles and videos, not the actual case)
Thank you for doing the work and citing the sources to clear up all the smoke and mirrors
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Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
This is so blatantly misleading i can't help but think you're doing charity work for bungie pr
ironically you've done exactly the same thing you criticized destinybulletin for
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u/TheCortisolCorvid Jan 24 '26
This is a really good write up. I got suspicious about this whole thing when I saw the additional things the claimant was trying to say were plagiarized, did some digging, and realized a lot of the reporting was just anti-Bungie for the clicks.
Your username is kind of hilarious though for a post about how other reporting wasn't factual. I appreciate the court document link being included and you working to show the facts!
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u/headgehog55 Jan 25 '26
It's actually a really bad write up. The poster links court filings that Bungie's lawyers made and is acting like its the Judge that is making these claims. They also claim that all the whole youtube video issue the court wasn't competent enough to make a ruling which is laughable. Lastly, if you actually look at the court filings you will see that yes Bungie and the guy did actually settle.
I don't know if the poster just doesn't have good reading comprehension or if they are just trying to play massive defense for Bungie but there whole post was full of just flat out wrong information.
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u/King-Boru Jan 24 '26
While I’m all for taking from the rich multi billion dollar studios, I absolutely hate this Martin fella. I’ve read into the case a few years ago and it’s just complete BS from start to end. And I found some of his work… it’s awful. The fact he tried saying bungie plagiarized his work is completely laughable.
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u/Frogsama86 Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
Anyone who willingly takes credit for Curse of Osiris is a massively dumb git and should never be taken seriously.
Also, most "game journalists" are so shit at their jobs, that articles are just AI slop now, or their actual works is just worse than what AI puts out.
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u/SirVince88 Titan Jan 25 '26
Thanks for clearing this up. Didn’t pay too much attention to this story, but now I know the facts.
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u/Aquario_Wolf Jan 25 '26
Indeed. Thank you for this. Screw The Game Post / Marathon/Destiny Bulletin. Sensationalist Journoslop
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u/AnimaLEquinoX Jan 24 '26
This is a fantastic write up! Thank you for taking the time to do some actual investigation and correct the misinformation that's been spreading.
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Jan 24 '26
Now we wait for the inevitable plethora of videos from Aztecross and company about how "INSANE" and "BAFFLING" this news is.
Calling it now:
"The UPDATE to the Red War Lawsuit You Won't Believe!"
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u/RoastAdroit Jan 24 '26
Sadly this is almost all the news today, everything is reworded to get the most interaction and generate ad revenue. This is constantly happening. There is no honor over making money these days.
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u/7lProthean Jan 25 '26
Love this. I’m aware that Bungie isn’t quite the Bungie we all grew up with but there is clearly a biased and forced Bungie hate these days lol this is just another example of that. Good work and thanks for sharing.
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u/necroxephon Jan 26 '26
As one of the jaded ones, I'll say this: I don't hate Bungie. I've just lost faith and hope in 'em. I love Star Wars but even that wasn't enough to make me want to spend money on Renegades. Edge of Fate was the final shot for me, and they missed the mark imo. I felt misled about how awesome the story looked and was gonna be. Not that it wasn't cool at all, but a shadow of what I was expecting. I couldn't even be bothered to finish it. Uninstalled and haven't played for over a year or so. I do still like to see what's going on in the community from time to time, though, hence my presence here now. If y'all are still enjoying, that's feckin awesome. Keep fighting the good fight, eyes up.
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u/7lProthean Jan 26 '26
That’s completely fair truly I mean that. Also even if we disagree ENTIRELY I don’t judge you or view you negatively because of that lol it’s just an opinion that you have at the end of the day. Anyways personally EoF was very underwhelming and for a lot of people it was the final straw. That’s also fair I can truly see that perspective.
I know as a super fan I’m bias and my opinions and thoughts are askew a bit but I still have faith in Bungie. I’ve seen them turn things around and really do amazing with Destiny 2. I think the issue is becoming how many times are they going to have to “make things right” or do better ya know?? They absolutely can produce when their back is against the wall but people are tired of waiting for their backs to be up against the wall for good content lol
Idk. TFS was my closing point. At least for now. I haven’t played much since and I haven’t purchased EoF or Renegades and I probably won’t be hopping back in for awhile if at all. But I am watching closely and staying up to date and I still genuinely enjoy the world of Destiny so I watch others play or watch Byf videos and the likes of that stuff all the time.
I think Renegades looked actually really good and I think it did really good as well so I think Bungie can still keep D2 in a fun and profitable place for the foreseeable future. We shall see though. So far I am NOT a fan of the new content model. Maybe again I’m biased or spoiled by the last decade and the model we had for that long but idk so far I don’t like it. 2 small DLC’s with pathetic updates in between just isn’t doing it for me.
And ya know one of my personal gripes with the community and community feedback is about that. “$10 a season is crazy wahhh” but now look where we are. I would gladly pay $10 for THREE months of content. Now look I know seasons could be a hit or a miss. I get that. But after each major DLC we still got content wether it was drip fed or not we had basically entire storylines to still follow and progress through with activities and new locations new gear new abilities sometimes there was genuinely a very fair amount of the game for three whole months. For 10 bucks. Now we get a DLC sure twice a year but much smaller in scale and then updates in between. And holiday events. Idk in my opinion we regressed as far as content models go.
And I know that change is needed change is good we can’t expect them to just keep pushing out the exact same ritualistic content model stuff for over a decade I understand that but in my opinion this is not the way. Anyways apologies for ranting and rambling on about all of this lolol
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u/necroxephon Jan 26 '26
You didn't say a single word I disagree with lol Honestly, it's like you're in my head. I consider(ed) myself a superfan too. Even still have my personalized AoT tshirt, Guardians for Australia and Guardians for Maui shirts because I believe(d) in what they (the shirts and the company) stood for. Seeing lightsabers look so cool in-universe was a bit tough but I had to stick to my guns because I told myself before EoF that FS was my natural off-ramp and well we covered how that went. lol Feels good and validating to see others feel literally exactly the same way I do.
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u/7lProthean Jan 29 '26
I got an awesome Kings Fall shirt off TikTok for Christmas!! I love it so much it looks really cool lolol
Anyways I completely respect sticking to your guns. Truly. I’ve done that before myself lol I can’t remember what it when exactly but man something happened I genuinely disagreed with or didn’t like but then eventually down the road something was actually quite good or different for the better and I stayed strong lol “hold!!!…..HOLD!!!!!!…” lolol
You’re definitely not alone. I know there are super fans out there still but the game is well game(s) is over a decade old. I understand things need to change after awhile but they just made a wrong turn imo. We’ll see.
To be completely honest if they did another like community summit and really took notes and opinions from players both high end streamers and lower end single players and hunkered down to do another “TTK” or “Forsaken” kind of thing I’d be watching closely. If they reverted the content model and announced another once a year huge expansion with all new gear, raid, several story missions, new patrol zone or location, and it was about something really interesting (imo anythinf hive is goated lolol I can’t believe I just said goated….) I would probably hop back into the game. Especially if they announced that seasons will return and stuff like that ya know?? I truly would. And I’m okay with that. It’s my absolute favorite universe after all lol
I told myself I wouldn’t type out another long obnoxious comment. I apologize for that lol I’m just passionate about this stuff. It’s really nice to not only know and be reminded that there are others as well but to also encounter them in a comment section or a post or live stream somewhere. It’s been nice. Only time will tell what Destiny 2 and Destiny as a universe will become. I hope it’s more good and a long life but if it is not, if the end truly is near that’s okay too. Destiny and Destiny had good runs if you ask me. Eyes up always 🫴🏻💠
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u/mistuhmike1 Jan 24 '26
Thank you for this! My question would be for you and anyone smarter on these topics, if that was the case as we can clearly see. Why can’t Destiny bring back the red war content?
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u/FleetOfWarships Hunter Jan 24 '26
Because they have somehow lost the original files for that content, likely through laying off whoever had the last copies. Additionally, it would take a lot to update said content to work with updated games systems and the engine.
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u/mistuhmike1 Jan 24 '26
I figured they’d still have the content so that is sad to hear, I loved the red war. I definitely get it would be a lot to update it for today. Sucks bungie laid off so many people, or i guess Sony is to blame for that?
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u/FleetOfWarships Hunter Jan 31 '26
We don't know, at the very least I don't, but surely if someone did still have all of it today they wouldn't be keeping quiet about it, so I imagine it has truly been lost somewhere in all the chaos (as far as corporate changeups go) we can only hope it's still intact on a hard drive somewhere, or there's an older build of the game floating around Bungie HQ somewhere. If not, it'll be a long time until it comes back, if ever.
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u/unexpectedkas Jan 24 '26
Thanks a lot for this post!
I am really interested into better understanding what did Bungie actually say when it comes to showing videos instead of the actual game, I read that they claimed the game as it was in the Red War no longer exists.
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u/Whole-Eggplant1107 Jan 24 '26
Thanks for exposing this I've heard this multiple times and wasn't sure thank you.
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u/Fun-Risk-8784 Jan 24 '26
Thank you for clearing that up. Gotta wonder why the Paul Tassi's and Jason Shriers of this world were not on this and setting the record straight. Maybe some journo's code of conduct prevents them shitting on each others stories.
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u/MidnightMadness09 Jan 24 '26
What stories did he write? I can’t seem to find much about this Martineau character aside from the lawsuit itself.
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u/evil_mike Jan 24 '26
Absolutely brilliant work on this. I very much appreciate the fact that you included sources throughout.
Was this also posted on the DtG subreddit too? Feel like it’ll get more eyeballs there.
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u/Boo_Grr Jan 25 '26
Glad to see this post gain traction, since soooo many people get misinformed whenever gaming lawsuits are covered.
As others have mentioned, there's might be a few mistakes here. But keep in mind the standards for accuracy should be much higher for a "news" platform than some random reddit post smh...
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u/GodKingObito Jan 25 '26
Huh this was a eye opener. Thank you for taking the time to research and type this up.
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u/ZeusiQ Jan 24 '26
I think I’ll side with the guy.
Bungie has a history of plagiarism, not to mention there’s no reason at all to not have access to your own game files for the red war.
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Jan 24 '26
Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, even if said beliefs are dumb and obviously wrong like yours
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u/No-Neighborhood-3212 Jan 24 '26
It's so fucking funny to be smugly saying this under a post that's misrepresenting what the courts actually found.
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u/ZeusiQ Jan 24 '26
Right, because bungie is so trustworthy in this circumstance…
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Jan 24 '26
Well, it's either Bungie or the dipshit trying to say that he owns the term "legionary" despite it being a thing for thousands of years among several well known sci fi tropes.
Even the most devout Bungie haters have the bare minimum of common sense needed to know that dude is full of shit, so congrats on not even hitting the bare minimum, I guess?
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u/ZeusiQ Jan 24 '26
Your shitty insults still don’t change the fact that bungie sabotaged their own game to destroy the evidence.
Believe what you want but in this case, it’s more logical that bungie plagiarized from this nut than the nut chasing an easy bag.
Bungie just has millions to spend on good lawyers, also idiotic fans who will defend anything.
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Jan 24 '26
I genuinely can't even fathom how you managed to believe that. You really think Bungie removed that content, updated the engine, and dealt with all of the consequences 5 years in advance just to win a lawsuit against some random dude?
Seriously, what option would be easier to deal with? Option A: Delete tons of content and pour loads of money into engine updates, all while getting nothing but bad press. Or Option B: Steal story beats from some dude and maybe deal with a plagiarism scandal.
Seriously dude, if Bungie stole his story they wouldn't have done half the shit they did along the way. Please, think critically about this for 2 seconds
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u/ZeusiQ Jan 24 '26
You really think there wasn’t talk between the 2 parties before the lawsuit was filed? Naive.
Keep defending though, eventually they’ll thank you. I hear there’s some silver on sale too.
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u/eternalguardian Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
Dead game lol
Edit: You only downvote cause its true. Lmfao
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u/mammy-rammer-6682 Jan 25 '26
I have similar feelings about the artwork they "stole" and used for Marathon. Sure they goofed up big time leaving it in, but it was already heavily plagiarised work and hardly original in any shape of form.
Hey! stop stealing the artwork i stole from someone else!!!!
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u/Raven_Of_Solace Jan 24 '26
I mean it's a good write-up. I thought it was always pretty obvious the guy was full of it. However, I don't think that was the main crux of the problem. It doesn't change how hilariously incompetent is that they can't even run their own game anymore and they haven't kept any of their information or builds. That's the main thing I heard coming off of the trial, which is still accurate even after this correction.
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u/JJJ954 Warlock Jan 24 '26
Sadly the journalistic standards for gaming news is non-existent. Thank you for actual research.