New character skins pop up in Call of Duty all the time, and they're often, shall we say, interesting. From Godzilla to Snoop Dogg, we've seen plenty of familiar faces in recent months. But this latest character design is perhaps more familiar than Activision would like.
An artist has complained that the new 'Floof Fury' dog looks very similar to their own concept art. And, er, yeah. You know that 'they're the same picture' meme from The Office? That. Someone at Activision needs to check out our guide to character design, stat.
"I only just found out at the time of the announcement that my work was plagiarised," artist Sail Lin announced on ArtStation. "Even though I am also a COD player, I am very disappointed to see my work being plagiarized by a big company like Activision in this way. As an individual artist, I can only do so much, and I have to speak out about this to stop things like this happening again in the future."
Lin shared the original dog design back in 2019, describing it as "smiling angel samoye". And from the black-and-white scarf to, well, literally everything else, Activision's design is exactly the same.
And now, Activision has scrubbed the design entirely from its website. The reveal trailer has also been deleted, although reuploads can still be found on YouTube (above). Lin has also taken to Twitter to announce that Activision has been in contact, so hopefully the issue will soon be resolved.
While we always try to avoid jumping to conclusions in design disputes (we really don't think Kanye copied Walmart's logo), this one is hard to argue with. The designs are just too similar – and it's disappointing to think that a company as vast as Activision allowed this to happen.
From the green M&M to Minnie Mouse, we've seen plenty of character design shockers in 2022. For some of the most ridiculous examples, take a look at our roundup of the most controversial character redesigns that have incensed the internet.
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Daniel John is Senior News Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of art, design, branding and lifestyle tech (which often translates to tech made by Apple). He joined in 2020 after working in copywriting and digital marketing with brands including ITV, NBC, Channel 4 and more.
