NFT Project Oldeus accused of copying Arknights animation

Oldeus has been charged with ripping off an animation from the smartphone game Arknights.

Customers can purchase characters and tokens with a manga-inspired design under the Web3 brand name Oldeus. Following a string of tweets from the Oldeus Twitter account, including a trailer, the claims surfaced. A little 21-second animation depicting a few of the characters from the NFT project is included in the video.

Oldeus is a web3 brand of NFTs with characters and tokens inspired by manga that users can buy. One of the most recent tweets from the Oldeus Twitter account contained the accusation. Characters from the NFT project are featured in a brief animation that lasts 21 seconds in the teaser.

“Plagiarizing was never our intention. We wanted to take inspiration and recreate Arknights’ trailer — it’s an impressive piece that aligns with the standards we want to reach,” the project added. “However, we do acknowledge that the similarity is too much and that the criticism is warranted.”

Furthermore, they promised to focus on originality to build “Oldeus’s unique voice and image”. They also shared WIP files demonstrating the creation of the trailer. Finally, the Oldeus team added that they are in touch with the Arknights team to “address any concerns that they might have.” Arknights, however, is yet to release any statements.

Users were quick to point out how closely the animation cutscene from Arknights' Roaring Flare and the video resemble Amiya's transformation into a Guard Class operator.

Additionally, it appears that many users on the Oldeus Discord server claim that the reveal trailer and the Arknights cutscene are comparable since they were allegedly made by the same animation studio, according to a Reddit post on the Arknights subreddit.

In a post on Twitter in reaction to this accusation, Oldeus asserts that they did not mean to steal Arknight's trailer but rather to be inspired by it and recreate it. To demonstrate that the trailer was created from scratch, the Twitter handle also posted WIP files in the same tweet.