Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a game that was recently caught under fire due to recent allegations regarding its animations being ripped from the FromSoftware hit game Elden Ring. In summation, the developers of the former were accused of stealing attack animations from the latter, and the developers were forced to make a response to the increasing backlash, stating that the animations in Bleak Faith: Forsaken weren’t stolen. How? We’ll learn more as we discuss this in depth.
This situation started a few days ago, with independent Dark Souls mod creator Meowmaritus accusing the developers of Bleak Faith: Forsaken of stealing animations from Elden Ring by exporting animations from the latter game using their modding tool known as Dark Souls Animation Studio. The evidence speaks for itself, so we’ll have a side-by-side comparison play out below, courtesy of Meowmaritus themselves:
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
With evidence as unquestionable as this, people began to look at the developers at Bleak Faith: Forsaken (hilariously misspelled as Forspoken in the accuser’s post) for answers. The developers issued a statement on their discord server about how the assets weren’t stolen but rather purchased from an Unreal Engine store pack currently available for purchase here.
We’ve always been transparent about using the Epic Marketplace for animations that are good and fit our theme […] The only other things from the Epic Marketplace that I use 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 [of Bleak] was built by hand, with 10% of the art being outsourced.
In summation, the animation assets found within Bleak Faith: Forsaken weren’t actually stolen but rather taken from an Unreal Engine asset that very likely used DS Anim Studio software to export those animations and then have them sold through the Epic Marketplace. Of course, the mod creator also issued a response to this and stated that the developers did not, in fact, steal animations but it was very likely that the creator of the store asset did.
The devs used an Epic Games store asset and probably recognized the DS3 and ER moves, being Souls fans, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’m mostly mad at the person who uploaded the assets, which can be found here https://t.co/HXjZYQiIfF https://t.co/pZLtHkhw0L— Meowmaritus (@meowmaritus) March 12, 2023
At the time of publication, the animations are still purchasable on the Epic Games Marketplace. In other words, there could be a number of developers that could be purchasing what could be stolen assets from Elden Ring and other FromSoft titles. Bleak Faith: Forsaken is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
