The LEGO Group has apologised for copying a fan’s Death Stranding model without permission for a gift sent to video game legend Hideo Kojima.
The architect behind Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding shared images of his gift from the LEGO Group last week, but controversy soon followed after well-known builder Jonas Kramm claimed that the company had stolen a design he created back in 2020. The LEGO Group has now apologised directly to Jonas for recreating his model without the original designer’s express permission.
“We want to reiterate our apologies for this situation,” the company said in a statement to Jonas, which he’s since shared on X (formerly Twitter). “As explained to you, a member of our team got excited about the prospect of sharing something cool with someone they greatly admire, and wanted to produce a physical recreation of a design that was not their own.
“We should have communicated with you and asked your permission to recreate your design, and of course ensured that you were properly credited for your work – this was a very unfortunate oversight and we deeply apologise. We will be speaking to Hideo Kojima to ask that you are properly credited, and we’ll be looking closely at our internal processes to ensure we do not make a similar mistake in the future.”
The two builds – which each depict Sam, the BB pod and BT strands from the 2019 video game – used many of the same pieces and techniques to realise their designs, from Sam’s hairpiece to the grills and black string used for the BT strands. And it’s now clear that none of those similarities were coincidental: the LEGO employee responsible lifted them directly from Jonas’s models.
For his part, Jonas seems happy to accept the LEGO Group’s apology. “You should never take credit for someone else's design, but I'm glad that [the LEGO Group] has admitted their mistake and apologised,” he tweeted. “Now back to building!”
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