Bleak Faith: Forsaken Found Using Copied Animations From Elden Ring And Dark Souls 3

Bleak Faith: Forsaken has been accused of copying multiple player and enemy animations from Elden Ring and the Dark Souls trilogy. Meowmaritus, a developer who codes Dark Souls modding tools, posted a video comparing the animations from both games on his Twitter account. However, a developer from Archangel Studios has come forward with their response to the whole controversy.

The developer made it clear in his post that they don’t condone the use of their DS Anim Studio software to aid in exporting animations from FromSoftware games and then using these animations for commercial purposes. Meowmaritus also claimed that Bleak Faith: Forsaken is “100% using animations ripped directly 1:1 from Elden Ring.”

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

The comparison video the developer posted further cemented that the animations of Bleak Faith: Forsaken were the same as those in Elden Ring. Many players accused Archangel Studios of plagiarism right after the allegations were made. However, a representative of Archangel Studios revealed their statement on their official Discord server on March 12.

The developer “übermensch42” responded to the allegations on Bleak Faith: Forsaken’s official Discord Server. The statement revealed that the studio bought the animations from a reputed seller on Epic Marketplace, and they weren’t aware of these animations being copied from any existing games. The developer confirmed that they’d be working on alternatives in the future.

According to the statement, the studio intended to make something unique and not to build off of someone else’s success. The developer also clarified that they want to see this situation resolved as soon as possible. Additionally, the studio was also found to be using AI-generated images for the perks icons. The official Twitter account of Bleak Falls responded that this whole situation with the perk icons was an oversight, and these icons will be redone soon.

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 (@bleak_faith) March 11, 2023

Bleak Falls: Forspoken was released on March 10 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The “Soulslike” game has received mixed reviews so far on Steam. Most of these reviews cite performance issues, clunky animations, movement, and bugs. However, despite the many negative reviews criticizing multiple aspects of the game, many reviews also praised the game’s art direction and environmental design.