Archangel Studios, the indie development team behind Bleak Faith: Forsaken, recently put out a statement regarding the accusation that it had stolen Elden Ring animations, promising to replace them "over the next several days," and presenting a criticism against Epic Games, as it had purchased said animations from Epic's dev marketplace.

Archangel Studios had previously reached out to Epic, and, in this recent statement, published its response. Epic essentially absolves itself from guilt, purporting that its marketplace has numerous third-party sellers, and it's on the seller to guarantee to Epic that they own the rights to the assets they are selling. Epic claimed that it was "not in a position to independently verify such rights," and that it "makes no such guarantee to purchasers of the content."

Archangel labeled this reply as "not satisfactory" and committed to replacing the assets it purchased from the Epic Marketplace "over the next several days." The devs stated that they had already made some changes in the recent patches, but that more would come soon. Finally, they proclaim that this should be a lesson to other indie creators out there, as "assets on these storefronts seemingly cannot be purchased in good faith."

Saw this footage floating around. Bleak Faith: Forspoken is 100% using animations ripped directly 1:1 from Elden Ring.

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. pic.twitter.com/9JHGMeu9as

— Meowmaritus (@meowmaritus) March 12, 2023

A few days ago, the video above made the rounds from a modder that sources out animations from FromSoftware games. The video shows animations in Bleak Faith side-by-side with animations from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3, and it was clear to see that they were essentially identical.

Many were quick to blame Archangel Studios for knowingly stealing them, but it would appear that the devs simply purchased them unknowingly, assuming that, if they were in the Epic Marketplace, they had to be legitimate. It is clear that is not the case, so, indeed, as Archangel stated, indie devs need to be wary when perusing any type of asset store.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a souls-like action RPG that released but a few days ago on March 10 for Steam. It has deep customization elements, and unforgiving combat, which are some of the staples of the souls-like subgenre, but it also adds in some new elements like stealth and climbing.

Posted: Mar 18, 2023 10:57 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/bleak-faith-elden-ring-animations-blame-epic/