Limbo of the Lost Composer Denies Stolen Music, Majestic Still Mum on Plagarism Accusations

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More than a week after it was discovered that Limbo of the Lost used environments and backgrounds from at least a dozen different games, the three-man team at developer Majestic Studios has still yet to issue any sort of statement.

"Between the three of us we researched, wrote, designed, animated, scripted and developed the whole game from home," Majectic's Laurence Francis told local paper Kent Messenger before the controversy, according to Telegraph.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

But while the team stays silent, freelance composer Marko Hautamäki, who was hired to provide music work for the controversial PC adventure title, has stepped forward to clear his name.

Hautamäki stated that all of the musical material he was "personally involved in" was original work. "I have the original project files of every music piece I made for the game to prove this," he wrote in a GamesRadar forum post. "I got involved in the project in May 2006 and finished my part in December 2006."

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Thief: Deadly Shadows.

However, the composer was curious as to if Majestic Studios stole musical assets outside of his involvement. "Majestic Studios project leader Steve Bovis assured me this is not the case," he continued. "If anyone has actually found stolen music in the game, I would very much like to know about it!"

As previously reported, publisher Tri Synergy claimed it was "as shocked as everyone else" in the wake of the startling similarities to other games, and immediately pulled the game from online and retail distribution.

Games and properties Majestic Studios is believed to have stolen from include:

  • Blizzard's World of Warcraft (PC)
  • Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC, PS2, Xbox)
  • Epic's Unreal Tournament 2003 (PC)
  • Epic's Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC)
  • People Can Fly's Painkiller (PC)
  • Ion Storm's Thief: Deadly Shadows (PC, Xbox)
  • Konami's Silent Hill series
  • Lionhead's Black & White 2 (PC)
  • Blizzard's Diablo 2 (PC)
  • Troika's Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)
  • Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (PC, Xbox)
  • Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, PS3, 360)
  • The 1997 film Spawn
  • Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy

Given the sheer number of similarities from so many different games, it is extremely unlikely that all of the duplicate assets are a result of a common texture pack, as was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s apparent use of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 elements.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 20, 2008 7:58 AM

    can't we just all see the game is called LOL for a reason?

    • reply
      June 20, 2008 8:16 AM

      Huh? What? I thought there was a "the" in the title. Like Lord of the Rings. I guess I've been mistyping LOTR for all this times. Oh noes!

    • reply
      June 20, 2008 8:54 AM

      yes, technically it would be LotL or just LL, but there are circumstances that require putting aside our grade school grammar lessons to achieve maximum lolz at someone else's expense.

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