Resident Evil Village has been accused of stealing a creature design for a boss called Sturm by the director of a 2013 movie.
As first reported by Eurogamer earlier this week, Dutch movie director Richard Raaphorst has accused Capcom of copying his work from his 2013 movie Frankenstein's Army. The movie features a creative with a rotating propeller blades attached to its head, which Raaphorst claims Capcom has stolen to make up the design for one boss fight in Resident Evil Village.
Warning, there are light spoilers for Capcom's new horror game just below!
In the later stages of Resident Evil Village, hapless protagonist Ethan Winters is pitted against a monster called Sturm, which has a whirring propeller attached to its head. It's this monster which Raaphorst claims Capcom has lifted from his movie, effectively copying the design which the Dutch director originally came up with for the 2013 movie.
"This is just one-to-one, really," the director himself told Eurogamer in a recent interview. "It's just the same scene as in my movie, except that in my movie you have to cut loose the fuel tubes. That's the only thing that is missing. But the whole thing is getting into flames, and then it explodes, and then the way it rotates through the camera - it's all the same, really. Even the environments, the whole colour palette. It looks like an animatic for my movie."
Raaphorst goes on to state that he never received any contact from Capcom about using the design of the monster for Resident Evil Village. In fact, it was only brought to his attention late last week, when fans contacted him about the eerily similar creature design after Village released on May 7.
"It's so difficult to come up with a great design. It's really hard to actually think about something that communicates as a cool design," Raaphorst went on to say. "It's not just that ideas are floating around that you can grab. It's actually hard labour. Then they just grab it and put it somewhere in the game. It's creative abuse."
At the current time, Raaphorst tells Eurogamer that he does not expect to receive any royalties from Capcom. Additionally, he says he is "exploring my options" about potentially receiving a credit in Resident Evil Village, and will likely be working with MPI Group, who financed the film in 2013, to achieve this.
Earlier today, we reported on Resident Evil Village having had one hell of a launch period over the previous weekend. So far, Village is tied in first place for the most successful game launch in Resident Evil history, sharing that spot with Resident Evil 6, both of which managed to sell three million units worldwide in just four days. Resident Evil Village is nothing short of a success for Capcom already, having helped the entire franchise surpass 100 million units in lifetime sales.
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