The Indie Souls-inspired video game Bleak Faith: Forsaken has received a great deal of backlash due to allegations that it stole animations from Elden Ring. Following the release of Bleak Faith for personal computers on March 10, 2023, a user named Meowmaritus posted a video to Twitter in which the two games were shown side-by-side and compared their animations, which appeared to be very similar. In spite of the claims, Archangel Studios, the company that developed Bleak Faiths, has refuted the accusations and pointed to the Epic Marketplace as the source of certain assets that were utilized in the game. Meowmaritus is a Dark Souls modder who asserted that Archangel was making unauthorized use of their software to export Elden Ring animations. Meowmaritus stated that he did not approve of people using his DS Anim Studio software to assist in exporting animations in order to include them in commercial products or sell them on the Epic Games Store. "I do NOT condone this practice."It is clear, from the footage that was presented, that the animations are very similar to one another. Archangel Studios provided a response to the allegations through Steam, in which they stated that any animations that were not created in-house were obtained from the Epic Marketplace and have been available on that platform for a number of years while being rigged to an Epic Skeleton.

The programmer continued by elaborating that animations are available for purchase through the Epic Marketplace, where they are also made accessible to the general public

1.  The developer also stated that it is willing to make changes, but it claims that it has not received any communication from Epic Games regarding any allegedly stolen animations

2.  GameSpot has reached out to Epic Games for further comment on the matter, and they have provided the following statement in response to our inquiry:In accordance with the Marketplace Distribution Agreement, each seller on the Marketplace represents and warrants to Epic that they are in possession of the necessary permissions to upload the content they sell on the Marketplace

3.  Epic, like any other retailer that hosts content created by third parties, is unable to independently verify such rights

4.  Additionally, Epic does not provide buyers of its content with any assurance that such rights will be honored