Posted under Gaming
Limbo of the Lost is a point and click adventure game, developed by Majestic Studios, who has gotten a lot of attention lately. Apparently Majestic Studios have stolen textures, weapons, backgrounds and even whole levels from other games as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Diablo II.
Comparison screenshots are all over the web. A forum thread at GamesRadar have a lot of them, and the resemblance can be spotted quite easily. In fact, it’s not even resemblance, the screenshots are almost identical. The list of games Majestic Studios have stolen from is huge, according to Wikipedia, these are the games:
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 2003, Diablo II, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Thief: The Dark Project, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Crysis, Silent Hill 4: The Room, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Painkiller, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middleearth, Hexen and World of Warcraft.
It doesn’t stop here. Scenes from the movies Spawn and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl have also been copied. One can see the resemblance with the main character of the game and Edward Norton in The Illusionist too. In this Neogaf thread the number of reported thefts is ridiculously high. Some people claim that the in-game cursor has been stolen from Black & White. Limbo of the Lost will probably be some kind of cult game, just like The Great Giana Sisters. Personally, I think Majestic Studios’ ripoff is hilarious. I mean, what were they thinking of? I imagine the development process were something like this:
-Hey, what do we do on the next level?
-I don’t have any ideas, why don’t we just copy-paste from some unknown game, I’m sure no one will notice.
-Okay, lets copy from Oblivion, or maybe Unreal Tournament 2004. Hardly any gamers have heard of those games.
Tri Synergy, the game publisher, claim that they had no knowledge of what had been going on at Majestic Studios. Tri Synergy have now stopped distribution of Limbo of the Lost.
The question is, is this actually for real or is it some kind of viral marketing trick? Well, who knows? It is not like Majestic Studios have tried to cover up their stealings. It is obvious that it isn’t their own work. It is so obvious that you really have to twist your brain inside out to figure out how on earth the developers will get away with this. If it were to be a hoax, it is extremely well carried out. I honestly don’t know what I think it is.
Quote from one of the forum users of Neogaf:
“I enjoy most of those games they stole from, so this game must be extra awesome to combine them together.”
And some quotes from reviews:
“Draws from the best of the best.”
“It’s like Oblivion meets Morrowind meets Diablo II meets Painkiller meets Unreal Tournament 2003 meets Enclave meets Unreal Tournament 2004 meets Black & White meets Thief: Deadly Shadows meets Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines meets Return to Castle Wolfenstein meets World of Warcraft.”
“Our frothing demand for this game increases.”
“There’s still some placeholder art but we’re sure the developer will have that squared away by release.”
Additional reading:
Interview with the developers
Limbo Of The Lost - An Astonishing Tale
Limbo of the Lost or Oblivion?