The Ace of Spades is one of Destiny 2‘s most iconic weapons, an exotic hand cannon that belonged to Nathan Fillion’s Cayde-6. Bungie recently announced a NERF version of the gun with an orange and black theme that will be matched by an in-game ornament for the gun coming next month. The only problem is that the design seems to be based on a nearly decade-old fan print.
“Celebrate 10 years of Destiny with the NERF LMTD Destiny 2 Ace of Spades Blaster, available for early access pre-order from September 9 to September 24 to players who have earned the Legend Title in Destiny 2,” Bungie announced earlier this week. Players who have the title unlocked, which requires completing a bunch of 10th anniversary content, and buy the toy replica will also get an exotic ornament for Ace of Spades called “Pocket Ace” that looks just like the NERF version and drops when Destiny’s Episode 2 Revenant update arrives on October 8.
That’s how an artist who goes by Tofu discovered that what seemed like her work was being used for the game. “I achieved the in-game title of ‘Legend’ and the game prompted me with an ad telling me I could buy the nerf gun,” she told Kotaku. “I clicked on it just to check it out and had that ‘wait a second, this looked familiar’ moment when I saw it.”
Tofu had made a stylized print of Ace of Spades back in 2015 for a friend when it was first added to the game as an obtainable exotic weapon in The Taken King expansion. “The engravings, the painted stripes, are all details that do not appear in the game so I got suspicious right away,” she said. “When I then checked my original files that I still have in my archive I noticed that no, it was literally 1:1, you can clearly see scratches and swirls in the engravings matching perfectly.”
She shared a comparison online including breakouts of all the parts that seemed to match her design in a tweet aimed at getting Bungie’s attention. “While I’m obviously disappointed I don’t blame Bungie for this, I know they outsource this kind of work and this is obviously a case of a contractor cutting corners,” Tofu said. “And, when this has happened in the past Bungie has apologized and been on top of it so, I am remaining hopeful.”
Update 9/12/2024 7:13 a.m. ET: Bungie responded to the claims last night with a tweet from the official Destiny 2 account stating that it was looking into the issue. “We are currently investigating internally and with our partner,” the studio wrote. “We are in contact with the artist and will share more on what next steps we are taking once we have gathered more information.”