I will note that before posting I had checked and saw the last commit on the plugin was more recent than the 2.8.0beta2 release. Looking again I see the commit is from a “bot” user so might not be indicative of much.
Looking more closely, I don’t think it is exactly the same. The badge appeared as a large image in the lower left corner of the user card. This new core functionality seems to control small boxes with tiny badge images and a badge name along the bottom of the user card.
This post Why does eviltrout have a garbage man badge? shows an early version of the badge feature:
As it existed prior to this update, the selection was limited to images associated with achievements earned. I have attached custom images to all badges on my forum to make such user card badges prettier. (The default ones are, um, “garbage”.)