It has been several days since players noticed that a number of icons in "The First Descendant" are very similar to those in "Destiny 2," and in some cases virtually identical.

The similarities were revealed earlier this month, but as Forbes pointed out at the time, they are too numerous (and in some cases too similar) to be coincidental.

Shortly after the similarities were discovered, a theory circulated that Bungie and Nexon were sourcing their in-game icons from the same source, but it seems unlikely to hold water: why would a major studio like Bungie use a third-party icon set?

Bungie artist Lyndon Willoughby indirectly but undeniably dismissed the idea, writing on Twitter that "Bungie's icon artists are a super crew of talented people with original ideas and keen instincts."

Things got even stranger when it was discovered that a "free open source icon and illustration" repository called Iconduck, the supposed source of the icons, was offering Destiny and numerous other games' icons for use in personal and commercial projects This is when it was discovered that the The site contains, for example, 204 Destiny icons and clearly states that "these icons and illustrations may be used for commercial purposes, for example, in video games."

Tom Chapman, the creator of the Bray.tech Destiny 2 fan site and an artist credited by Iconduck as the creator of the icons, denies his role in this." Most of the icons were ripped from font files created by Bungie and its designers," Chapman tweeted. Most of the rest were designed by Bungie and re-created by me or someone who contributed to that repo." I don't want @iamiconduck to use my work like this."

Bungie's terms of service allow the use of their data and content for non-commercial projects like Chapman's website, but explicitly forbid using it to make money: "You do not own our stuff, so it or use it to sell anything else, or give permission to anyone else to use it.

After several days of silence, Nexon now acknowledges the similarity and says the icon will be changed.

"As a loot shooter game, The First Descendant was developed with a deep love and respect for other games in the genre," Nexon said in a statement provided to PC Gamer. Destiny 2, the world-renowned loot shooter game, was also a personal source of admiration and respect for the team and an inspiration in the development process.

"We take your concerns seriously and have decided to make adjustments to ensure that images that may appear similar clearly reflect the unique identity of our game. We will continue to improve the game for fans of the loot shooter genre."

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Nexon did not say when the icons would be changed, nor did they comment on why this was happening in the first place. My guess at this point is that Iconduck is offering the Destiny icon for free for unauthorized commercial use, and Nexon has decided to use it without proper review. Nexon is a reasonably large company and presumably has the resources and experience necessary to make sure that "free stuff" is actually free, but at the very least, it is a reminder that not everything on the Internet is as it seems, as we noted when this first became a big deal It is what it is.

Despite these shortcomings, the very mixed user reviews on Steam, and our own assessment that it's Destiny in the house, The First Descendant has been very popular so far, and since its launch on July 2 the number of simultaneous players on Steam has consistently exceeded 100,000