Accused of copying FromSoftware's homework, Lords of the Fallen 2 boss says its Elden Ring Nightreign doppelganger is from 2024: "Visual overlap can occur in medieval fantasy"

With Lords of the Fallen 2 positioned as one of 2026's biggest Soulslike action RPGs, developer CI Games has been rolling out regular marketing art snippets showing off enemies – the "hordes of the fallen," that is. The studio's most recent post sparked some controversy, as observers quickly noted similarities to two famous armored soldiers in the FromSoftware archives, but CI Games CEO Marek Tyminski says it's all pure coincidence.

The Lords of the Fallen 2 soldier revealed, an apparent worshipper of deep lore moon goddess Menasilde, sports a blue cloak and tasset-like cloth accents, and wields a sawed greatsword. You don't have to squint your eyes very hard to see a little bit of Artorias, a blue-accented knight from the Dark Souls 1 DLC, and much more of Wylder, a visually similar and much more topical addition from Elden Ring Nightreign. Wylder even has an Artorias skin, as it happens.

Tyminski says these things just happen, and Lords of the Fallen 2's design was minted in 2024 before Elden Ring Nightreign, which drew the fiercest comparisons in reactions on Twitter, was announced.

"Pleased to prove that yesterday’s accusations of plagiarism are 100% false," Tyminski says, sharing a screenshot of an internal Slack discussion from July 2024. In it, a CI Games artist shares "the render for the HallowedBro" which went on to become the Menasilde soldier shared on Wednesday.

"A newly revealed standard enemy was claimed to copy Wylder from Nightreign," Tyminski writes. "This armour was finalised on July 17, 2024 – over 5 months before Nightreign was announced – and the completed model was already in-engine by Oct 23, 2024. The timeline is clear.

"Visual overlap can occur in medieval fantasy design. We respect FromSoftware, but we do not copy other studios. The armour designs in Lords of the Fallen were widely praised, and we're confident Lords 2 will be no different. We stand fully behind our artists, their originality, and the integrity of their work."

Last month, Tyminski made a bizarre show of Lords of the Fallen 2 including sexy ladies. Of course, soldier designs and sexy ladies had nothing to do with the previous game being kind of eh, so here's hoping the gameplay – co-op flow, skill balancing, input responsiveness, enemy placement – gets greater attention and polish.

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