Wuthering Waves Accused of Copying Destiny 2 Raid Icons — But the Comments Section Isn't Having It

A skull with a sword stabbed through it — that's the design motif that allegedly landed two major game studios in hot water. A NGA user recently posted an accusation claiming that Wuthering Waves (鸣潮, developed by Kuro Games) blatantly copied Destiny 2's raid icon, arguing both use the same 'sword-through-skull' composition. The post included side-by-side screenshots — Wuthering Waves' skill icon on top, Destiny 2's raid emblem below.

The original poster claimed the images came from Xiaoheihe (小黑盒, a popular Chinese gaming community platform) and sighed that "basically every time a new game drops, Bungie's assets get 'borrowed' again" — implying Chinese game developers routinely lift icon designs from Western titles.

But here's where it gets spicy: the comments section went completely off-script. Instead of rallying behind the accusation, the vast majority of respondents pushed back hard. Top-voted comments fired back with: "Other than both being swords through skulls, what exactly is similar?" and "The skulls don't even look the same — this is reaching." A self-identified retired Destiny veteran (玩家自称"退休噶殿"/"Ghallan", slang for long-time D2 players) admitted: "As someone who played D2 since Year 6, I gotta say a sword stabbing a skull is about as generic as design gets."

What really sealed the deal was hard evidence from the comments. One user dropped Baidu reverse image search results, demonstrating that "sword-through-skull" imagery is absolutely everywhere in gaming, anime, and pop culture — hardly a unique creative property of any single studio.

A Destiny 2 veteran also dropped a fun fact: the horns on the skull icon were added purely to pass China's notoriously strict content review (过审/审核) process — not as an original design choice. Another commenter added a hilarious detail: "The truly embarrassing part is that before the game's server went down, the icon looked like the left version, but after re-launching it changed to the right one" — pointing to the absurd reality of how Chinese game censorship forces visual changes.

The real showstopper moment came when someone coined the phrase "baseless accusations are basically free PR" (尬黑等于洗), essentially calling the accusation post a self-own. Another user delivered a legendary analogy: "It's like everyone's debating whether this guy gets the death penalty or life in prison, and you suddenly pop up to say he should be fined ¥20 for spitting on the sidewalk." The implication: Wuthering Waves has far more serious issues worth discussing, and nitpicking an icon dilutes legitimate criticism.

As it stands, this plagiarism accusation has essentially collapsed under scrutiny. The comments section consensus is that the sword-through-skull motif is about as original as a fire-breathing dragon — ubiquitous across global gaming, film, and anime. One player summed it up perfectly: "With so many games on the market, similar-looking icons are inevitable. What matters is whether the game is actually fun." The accusation post, ironically, became a masterclass in how not to throw shade.