Developer accused of using stolen Elden Ring animations pulls assets after Epic response

eurogamer.net:

The developer of Bleak Faith: Forsaken will now replace assets purchased from the Epic Marketplace, after being accused of using animations stolen from FromSoftware.

Earlier this week, Archangel Studios released its Soulslike game, but players noted that some animations were almost identical to some found in Elden Ring.

The developer has now responded to the accusations, stating the response received from Epic was «not satisfactory for us».

In a statement shared with Eurogamer, the developer said that 10 percent of the game had been created using Epic Marketplace assets.

«As a three-person studio, [Epic Marketplace] was a vital resource to utilise throughout the four year development. The assets in question were purchased from the Epic Marketplace in good faith and with the understanding that Epic went through the proper vetting and review process before listing them for sale,» reads the statement.

After contacting Epic for an investigation into the origins of the assets, Epic responded to the developer: «Pursuant to the Marketplace Distribution Agreement, each Marketplace seller represents and warrants to Epic that they have appropriate rights to upload their content. As with any store that hosts third-party content, however, Epic is not in a position to independently verify such rights, and Epic makes no such guarantee to purchasers of the content.»

As a result, Archangel Studios is removing these assets from the game out of respect for the original artists and the players.

"[The response from Epic] is not satisfactory for us and so we have taken the decision to replace the assets purchased from the store over the next several days. Some changes we included in the recent patches, and more are coming in the next few