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Posted on August 20, 2013, Mark Burnham Treyarch Stole Black Ops 2 DLC Art, YouTuber Alleges (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Jaxendale’s YouTube channel deleted his YouTube account late yesterday, and the original video is gone. Jaxendale told Game Front he received a number of “insane threats” from Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 fans, several of which frightened him to the point where he thought it would be safer to delete his account, at least for the time being.

In the meantime, we found a mirror, embedded above.

The above video makes a pretty big claim: that Treyarch “stole” (as in stole your bike, your phone; thievery) some art concepts and the overall design for a map titled “Origins,” part of Black Ops 2′s upcoming Apocalypse DLC.

Go ahead and watch the video yourself, it’s pretty short. But if you can’t be bothered, here’s the basic accusation:

There’s an artist named Francisco Fruiz. He apparently designed some concept art for the film Pacific Rim. He’s quite good, from what I can tell.

He also made pictures of a giant robot fighting old timey planes. Those pictures can be found here, and here.

In the video, YouTube director (and Call of Duty fan page administrator) Jaxendale builds a pretty involved case alleging that Treyarch outright stole the art/concept/design. In fact, Fruiz himself made that accusation as well on his blog.

You can watch the Apocalypse trailer below to compare the two works for yourself.

Jaxendale’s video is picking up some traction on forums, and the conversation seems pretty split. There seems to be three groups: A) “I’m boycotting Treyarch until the universe turns to dust.” B) “It isn’t stolen, it’s a coincidence, and if anything the original art looks like The Iron Giant.” C) “It probably is stolen, or maybe it isn’t, but I don’t care at all either way.”

We’ve reached out to Activision as well as Francisco Fruiz to request comments, and will update the story if new information comes in.

Follow Mark Burnham on Twitter: @MarkBurnham.