Call Of Duty Dog Skin Removed Following Artist's Accusation Of Plagiarism

Activision was planning to bring a dog/wolf skin to Call of Duty: Warzone and Vanguard, but the skin has been pulled in the 11th hour after an artist accused the company of plagiarism.

The "Loyal Samoyed" skin, as it was called, will no longer be released. Artist Sail Lin said Activision plagiarized their work, "Samoye Medical," which was uploaded to ArtStation in December 2019. The artist claims Activision did not reach out and did not offer any compensation.

"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," Lin wrote (via Polygon). "I have reached out to Activision for an explanation and/or compensation, and hopefully the situation will be settled soon. As an individual artist, I can only do so much, and I have to speak out about this to stop thins like this happening again in the future."

In a statement to Polygon, Activision owned up to the mistake. "We have the utmost respect for creativity and content creation. We love the Loyal Samoyed, but regrettably we erred in our process and have removed this imagery from the game. We apologize for the misstep," it said.

In other Call of Duty news, Activision has revealed the Modern Warfare 2 beta dates and announced Call of Duty Next, an upcoming event with details on Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer and what's next for Warzone.