The First Descendant accused of using similar icons as Destiny 2
The First Descendant is an action-RPG that appears to be inspired by other games in the free-to-play space like Destiny 2 and Warframe. Forbes‘ Paul Tassi has shared some of the game’s icon designs and commented on how players have noticed strong similarities to Destiny 2. As Tassi points out, none of the icons are identical to those used in Destiny 2, but it’s hard to ignore the similarities, with “tiny tweaks” that make it a “‘copy my homework without making it look like you copied it’ type situation.”
With that in mind, fans seem to have found a potential reason for the resemblance (thanks, PC Gamer). The icons in question appear to be listed on a site called Iconduck, which has thousands of “free open-source icons and illustrations,” including those from a number of franchises like Pokémon, Marvel’s Avengers, Batman, and more.
There is a Destiny Icons pack which contains over 200 icons from the game, including faction logos, weapon icons, and logos for Xbox and Microsoft. It’s listed as “open sourced with the license: Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal” and claims that “All icons can be used for personal & commercial purposes.”
The set was designed by Bray.tech creator Tom Champman, who has created multiple websites for Destiny 2, but it looks like Chapman has no affiliation with Iconduck. “I’ve come to hate open source,” Chapman said on X. “Most of the icons are ripped from the font files created by Bungie and its designers. Most of the remainder are designed by Bungie and recreated by me or whoever contributed them to that repo. I don’t want Iconduck to use my work like this.”
Nexon is yet to comment on the situation, and on how and why these icons appear in The First Descendant.
The First Descendant isn’t the first game this year to face such problems, as Palworld developer Pocket Pair was also scrutinized for the similarities between some of its Pals and Nintendo’s Pokémon.