Bleak Faith: Forsaken devs accused of using stolen animations from FromSoftware
Studio claims they're taken from Epic Marketplace.
The developers of Soulslike Bleak Faith: Forsaken have hit back at critics claiming it's used stolen animations from FromSoftware.
A number of images and videos have been shared online with side-by-side comparisons of the animations used in Bleak Faith and Elden Ring, which admittedly do look identical.
However, developer Archangel Studios has stated that animations and art have been taken from the Epic Marketplace.
Twitter user Meowmaritus, who created the DS Anim Studio modding tool for Dark Souls, shared footage on the platform and stated: "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."
Over on Steam (thanks PC Gamer), where the game was released on 10th March and currently has a Mixed response, a developer from the game named Roia has responded to claims of stolen animations.
"Any animations not made in-house are from the Epic Marketplace and have been up there for years, rigged to an Epic Skeleton. We've heard this comment before, but you can buy the animations yourself if you want as they are publicly available and have been for a long time. Any other question or concern should be taken up with Epic themselves," said Roia.
The developer added it's "willing to rework things if there's something amiss going on in the marketplace".
Assets from the Epic Marketplace were used to fill in generic art, but were still edited. Roia estimates about 10 percent of the total game art is from there.
Eurogamer has contacted FromSoftware for comment.
Archangel Studios has also been criticised for its use of AI art for perk images.
Responding on Twitter, the studio said: "We hear you about it, we're working on new icons currently. It was somewhat of an oversight but also a decision that came from an honest place. We value the feedback however and will have redone perk icons up today!"
Bleak Faith: Forsaken was released on Steam last week and is a rather...bleak looking Soulslike merging a medieval and modern day aesthetic. See for yourself in the trailer above.