Indie soulslike Bleak Faith: Forsaken removes assets it was accused of stealing from Elden Ring

After indie action-RPG Bleak Faith: Forsaken was accused of stealing animation assets from Elden Ring, the developer behind the game has removed all assets in question.

Earlier this week, Archangel Studios came under fire for allegedly ripping animations straight out of Elden Ring for their new game, Black Faith: Forsaken. At the time, the developer denied the accusations, stating that it had purchased the assets from the Epic Marketplace and maintained that it had always been transparent about using the marketplace as part of the game's development.

Now, Archangel Studios has opted to remove all the animation assets in question from Bleak Faith: Forsaken. The studio tells 12DOVE in a statement that it reached out to Epic for an investigation into the assets, but were told that "Epic is not in a position to independently verify such rights, and Epic makes no such guarantee to purchasers of the content."

Since then, the assets have been removed from the Epic Marketplace, and Archangel has opted to follow suit in Bleak Faith: Forsaken. "[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," the developer told 12DOVE in a statement. 

"Some changes we included in the recent patches, and more are coming in the next few days. Certainly this has been a huge lesson for us and hopefully other indie creators out there too that assets on these storefronts seemingly cannot be purchased in good faith," Archangel Studios concluded.

Archangel Studios also asserts in its statement that only 10% of Bleak Faith: Forsaken has been "outsourced" in this manner, and the process has actually been vital for the development team of just three people, working together over the past four years to deliver Bleak Faith: Forsaken.

The Bleak Faith developer adds that stolen assets are "unacceptable," and they will "continue listening to all feedback and frequently update the game." Archangel Studios also hopes that Epic will take this opportunity to put into place proper review protocols to ensure stolen assets don't make their way onto the Epic Marketplace in the future.

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