Occasionally the sci-fi credential of upcoming games, films or series aren't completely clear until they release and one such is the recently released souls-like action roleplaying game Bleak Faith: Forsaken.

But it released and kind of bombed so our missing it seemed irrelevant until its developers were accused of stealing assets from last year's big hit, fantasy souls-like Elden Ring and earlier FromSoftware games.

Science fiction stealing from fantasy?

Erm, are we sure this is sci-fi?

Wouldn't guess from its name or combat which appears completely medieval but the setting is post-apocalyptic and watching the first few minutes of its gameplay the futuristic technology aspect is undeniable.

So yes, this is sci-fi.

A side-by-side comparison of the animations appears damning.

Bleak's developers (Archangel Studios) were quick to respond that like many developers - including they say FromSoftware - working in Unreal Engine they buy and use some assets from the Epic Marketplace.

Fromsoftware outsources a lot of their art in all of the games you love, if you look around you will find they BUY hundreds of art assets from other companies as well, and also reuse those assets because a lot of that is not INHOUSE - Meaning they can't wake animations on the fly, they have to work with the many companies they hire to make their work. I'm sorry to burst your bubble if you thought Miyazaki himself makes everything, or the 200-300 employees they have make everything. They have thousands of contracted artists from around the world that they buy things from. So remember that when comparing our own quality to Elden Ring, maybe that puts into context what 3 developers really means.

Others - not FromSoftware - insist that they're Elden Ring originals and have been ripped off, among other claims.

Archangel say that they've proactively submitted a support ticket to Epic about the assets in question.

Since the link to those assets no longer works we assume that Epic have temporarily removed them pending a determination of their origin and legality.

[ Main Image: Bleak Faith Forsaken. Credit: Archangel Studios via Steam. ]

References

IGN (March 11, 2023). Bleak Faith: Forsaken - The First 16 Minutes of Gameplay. YouTube.

MacGregor, Jody (March 12, 2023). Soulslike dev accused of reusing FromSoftware animations. PC Gamer.

Steam. Bleak Faith: Forsaken. Archangel Studios. (viewed March 14, 2023)