Shadow Faith: Forsakena new Soulslike from Archangel Studios, it has been mired in controversy since its release on March 10. That’s because gamers suspected that the indie developer hijacked the animations seen in FromSoftware games like blood borne and ancient ring. Now, after days of allegations against them, the creators will “replace” all repurposed assets that they claim were purchased in good faith because Epic cannot verify the source of the animations on the Epic Marketplace store.

A more cyber-gothic interpretation of FromSoft’s established Die-try-Die formula, Shadow Faith: Forsaken He tasks you with exploring the last remnants of a civilization beset by ruin. What this looks like is a stereotype for the genre. You’ll traverse massive Gothic cathedrals and churches, sprawling cities, and dense forests as you battle knights and monsters vying to backstab you. Imagine ancient ring With some blood borne influence and you will get an idea of ​​the environment Shadow Faith: Forsaken steam. Unfortunately, following the game’s release on March 10, players wondered if the vibe was inspiration or a straight bite. As pc gamer reportedpeople accused Archangel Studios of repurposing FromSoft assets.

Archangel Studios accused of plagiarism

In the time since the game came out, several builds have been made. posted online comparing Shadow Faith: Forsakenthe animation assets of some FromSoft games. One shows the move set for a straight sword shaped Claymore in Shadow Faith: Forsaken that looks very similar to the blows of the sword of the uchigatana ancient ring. Other demonstrate animations reminds of Malenia, Blade of Miquella and dark souls 3Watcher of the Abyss.

However, perhaps the most notorious example is the above video posted by the Soulslike Lovers YouTube channel. In the brief side-by-side clip, he appears as the Shadow Faith: Forsaken the boss Konrad The Traitor has a circular swing attack that looks almost identical to the move used by ancient ring‘s banished knights.

Archangel Studios has ever since introduce oneself to explain himself. On the game’s Steam store page, a developer named Roia saying that all the animations that weren’t done in-house were bought from the Epic Marketplace and “have been there for years, rigged into an Epic Skeleton.” The developer went on to say that “the marketplace was used to fill in the generic art and was still edited to fit the general needs of the art direction,” clarifying that only 10 percent of the art used in Shadow Faith: Forsaken It was purchased directly from the Epic Marketplace. In the end, Archangel Studios said that all assets were purchased “in good faith.”

Reused animations will be patched soon.

Despite buying in good faith, an Archangel Studios representative told Kotaku that the team approached Epic Games to get to the bottom of the repurposed assets. According to them, Epic said through email correspondence with my city that each seller on the Marketplace “represents and warrants to Epic that it has the appropriate rights to upload its content.” However, the company also stated that because it is a store that contains third-party content, Epic Games is not in a “position to independently verify such rights.”

With this in mind, the Archangel Studios representative said that all assets purchased from the Epic Marketplace will be removed from Shadow Faith: Forsaken “for the next few days” out of respect for the original artists.

“[The response from Epic] It is not satisfactory to us, so we have made the decision to replace the assets purchased from the store over the next few days,” said a representative for Archangel Studios. “Some changes we included in recent patches, and more to come in the next few days. This has certainly been a great lesson for us and hopefully other independent creators as well that the assets on these storefronts apparently cannot be purchased in good faith.”

my city reached out to Epic Games and Sony for comment.

The representative concluded by saying that Archangel Studios hopes other indie developers learn from this by making purchases from an asset store. Although they are “a critical resource” for smaller teams with less money, Archangels Studios would still like to see better investigation and review protocols to prevent future allegations of stolen development assets.