The studio behind the infamous Soulslike video game Bleak Faith Forsaken is accused of stealing assets from Elden Ring and shares a statement to defend itself.
Bleak Faith Forsaken was recently released a few days ago. It is a Soulslike game set in some sort of an apocalyptic world where players fight against robotic and giant monsters. It is a highly ambitious game with some fans and streamers excited about its potential, but it turned out to be disappointing. Based on the feedback on Steam, it has mixed reviews with negative reviews saying it has a lot of bugs at launch.
While the reviews were quite notable, it was the controversy that highlighted its infamy. A Dark Souls modding tool developer shared a video that compared both Bleak Faith and footage from the popular video game Elden Ring.
Modder Meowmaritus claims that when the two footages were compared side to side, the player and enemy animations have a lot of similarities, clearly identical even. They suggest that the animations were copied from Elden Ring and then used in Bleak Faith.
“Saw this footage floating around. Bleak Faith: Forspoken is 100% using animations ripped directly 1:1 from Elden Ring,” the modder said on a Twitter post. “I do NOT condone people using my DS Anim Studio software to aid in exporting animations to include in commercial products or sell them on Epic Games Store.”
Numerous players quickly accused developer Archangel studios of plagiarism. One of the developers claims that they did not know the origin of the assets came from. On the official Bleak Faith Discord server, the developers claimed that the animations were bought as part of an asset pack that was on sale on the Epic Games Store.
“We’re always been transparent about using the Epic Marketplace for animations that are good and fit our theme,” developer überfaith42 said on a post. “The rest I made – we just needed more variety and I’m not an animator by trade, I had to learn for this game.”
“The only other things from the Epic Marketplace that I use is for generic VFX that was a waste of time to make since I’d make things that looked virtually the same anyway, and things that are so generic (like some rocks) that didn’t require artistic direction.
“The entire world was built by hand. So about 10% of the art is outsourced, whereas AAA companies outsource about 70% of their art (since they have the budget, we don’t have that option and so any idea we have needs to be made in-house).”
Developer ‘überfaith42’ then shared a link to the Epic Games Store pack that they claimed to be where the animations originated from. For some reason, it now says “not found” when it is opened.
The developers on the following day say that they are working on alternative animations. Even if all turned out to be okay, the developers said, they are now looking for other ways so that everyone would be fine with it.
“I want to stress this decision comes currently purely out of an artistic lens, as an artist I take pride in all the manual work and unique things I’ve built over the course of these many years,” the developers stated. “I wanted the game to stand out and bring its own flare in as many ways as possible. I definitely wasn’t aware any of animations were really similar to anything else, I just thought we were doing business with a legitimate entity and that their work fit our vision of the combat.”
“If it turns out that this seller is illegitimate, we will have all been victims of nefarious behavior.”
Bleak Faith Forsaken is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.